


Grapes Grow on Vines of Love

by ReduxCath



Category: Ancient Greek Religion & Lore, Hades (Video Game 2018)
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Bad Parenting, Basically how he got to be a god, Bisexual Male Character, But its not good at all nor painted in a positive light, Character Study, Daddy Issues, Dionysus wants to fuck, F/M, Friendship/Love, Implications of near incest, Like way before, M/M, Musings on Marriage and Love, Or incest if you squint, Origin Story, Pansexual Character, Pre-Canon, This is before Zagreus is born, Zeus is an asshole, but also hes a sadboi that wants hugs, like an asshole, philosophical
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-26
Updated: 2021-01-28
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:33:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 11
Words: 32,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28337757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ReduxCath/pseuds/ReduxCath
Summary: The story of how Dionysus, God of merry-making and wine, came to understand his godhood, traveled the world, and almost died searching for the one thing he always wanted.
Relationships: Dionysus/Prosymnus (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore)
Comments: 20
Kudos: 47





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So basically this is an adaptation using the basis of Hades's story with one of the original non-Zagrean Dionysus myths. Dionysus is very bi/pan in this. Zeus is an asshole. Basically, a huge character study focusing on Dionysus, Demeter, Zeus, and Persephone, among others. There's some hints of Dio/Ares and Dio/Heph if you squint, but these are not the main pairing

Your name is Dionysus, and you are young.

You understand little about your place in the world, with its big, blue sky and its wide green fields. You are adequate at preparing meals. A little less talented with the bread and the meat, but you can get the job done if you really have to do it. Your knees long for the dirt and the sensation of bending as you seek to pluck fruits from their branches, berries from their vines. You’re good at making juice, very good, you’ve been told.

You live among women. Women of all ages, of all skin colors. Your mothers love you, care for you like nothing else. And you know that it’s uncomfortable for them to feel this way, because you’re their God, and they worship you and revere you—and yet they also dote on you and scold you when you do wrong, and then, their faces twist or shroud in shadow because they feel so _wrong_ about it. And you have to put on your big boy pants and tell them that, no, you like it that way.

You don’t actually, of course.

What you wouldn’t give to be able to cut loose, to be able to just belch like a beast and strut around naked and swing your dick around like mad. And, perhaps, it is your duty as a god to lead these women away from this notion of motherhood so that they can worship you properly. But these women raised you up, and you love them so, and the idea of them not being your mothers anymore would make them very sad.

You can’t help it, the way you feel so safe when you go to sleep under the light of the moon, secure among them all.

You suppose…you suppose your lack of a mother makes you want that from them. Makes you desire motherly affection from beings who truly have no business giving that to you.

Oh, but you have a father. And what a _great fucking Father_ you have. Lord of the Skies, King of the Gods, your Father Zeus!! When he’s able to sneak down from his heavenly throne and visit you (it’s always brief, very brief) he laughs and laughs and laughs with this belly motion, deep and low, a sound like a tiger purring, and you _adore it_.

You very quickly learned to not ask questions about how you got to your present circumstances.

Once, of course, you did. Not that you didn’t _know_. You are a God, and your divine nature makes your mind clearer than anything else, to the point where you remember the searing pain of Divine Light pushing and tearing through innocent placenta— _but no, it shouldn’t be possible my boy, your mother is mortal_. That is what your Father said, looking nervous and scared, like a young lad (like you) caught with his dick where it wasn’t supposed to be. Except at that age, your dick hadn’t started truly working yet, and the weirdest thing you’d done with it was put it in a jar of jam to try and change its color. And then that night, with hushed whispers from one of your mothers, you learned about infidelity and cheating, and about how pitiable ( _she_ was very careful not to use that exact word) Hera, Queen of The World, was in her Station.

Your Father hated to remember what you would always clearly recall.

But that was fine. You learned that if you didn’t bring it up, he would laugh, and teach you things, and you loved learning from him. From Hermes too, whenever he liked to show up and play with you. As long as you didn’t bring it up, everyone was fine.

Under the light of the moon, the shadows of the trees hiding the both of you after a fun game of frog catching (he always said he wanted a cousin with fast legs, just like him), you held Hermes’ hand to stop him. “Was Hera mad, when Dad sowed me into his hip?”

“Erm…” For a single moment, Hermes looked like he wanted to dash out of there. But then, somehow, he didn’t, and he knelt down in front of you and for a single moment, he looked like more of a man than Father looked on his best days. “…She wasn’t happy. But then, she didn’t hunt you down. She kind of locked herself up? Cried a lot. Those two’re…well…”

“Is it my fault?” You ask, feeling the drop of mortal fear inside you bring you to the gaps in your divine knowledge (which you would soon learn would always exist, even if you had been completely Divine from the start). It is one of the few moments in your eternal life where you feel unsure, and lost.

Hermes blinks. Pushes air out of his lips with a short _pssshh_ sound, rolls his eyes. The gesture is so quick it baffles you, because whenever anyone talks about Father, it’s with the utmost deference. And yet— “What those two have going on isn’t _any_ of our fault except theirs.”

And he left you in that forest after placing a kiss atop your head.

You never broached the topic with him again.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Innovation isn't always appreciated.  
> But it also isn't always understood

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the myths, I don't think Demeter really interacts much with Dionysus, but from all their voicelines in Hades where they talk about how the other doesn't appreciate or understand what they do, I really think they had to have some relationship

Your name is Dionysus, and one day, the air is more…. _more._

You don’t really know how to put it.

But a woman is there in your grove, one who is not one of your mothers, and after a second of confusion you see the way your mothers bow to her, how nature itself bows to her from every angle, and you realize she is like you. And she is _higher_ , much higher than you.

You remember Father, how he loves it whenever you run up and tackle him. And you try it with his woman, certain it will bring you similar—

You hang in the air, flowers and vines holding you. Not too tight, but not at all gently, either.

And then you realize that this woman who has the same eyes as Father is nothing like him.

“Good afternoon, young man. My name is Demeter, Goddess of Nature, and Queen of The World.”

The fact that she said that without the very earth breaking apart to smash her body to bits proved that it was true. And somehow, you realized that there could be two Queens of the world at the same time.

You would learn the intricacies of it in due time. After much prayer, study, deliberation, and observation of what it meant to be alive and marry and multiply. You would learn that Demeter and Hera held hands.

In time.

Demeter’s visits are nothing like Father’s.

Your Father taught you about commanding creatures, about playing tricks on others by changing the shape of your body, and about relishing those different shapes because _all_ shapes are fun. He taught you how to put your arm around women, how to curry favor with men, and how best to make cheeks flush. It had been positively _righteous_ , a barrel of fun, just for you. But Demeter does not teach you how to transform or call animals to do your bidding, and the very topic of flirting has her make this _face_. Instead, she teaches you harder things. Hunting. Fishing. You, of course, learned these from your mothers, but under Demeter your skills sharpen to a point where you begin to realize the gap between mortals and yourself. You are well aware that you are no God of the Hunt. Your arrows and your traps still miss, and you cannot, however you try, make your machinations curve in the air. But you grow good at it, with the practice.

It still bores you, though.

Demeter’s eyes, though they are like Father’s, are something much more sharp and cold, despite the varying plants that dress her frame. She is able to see the moment before you begin to truly slack at your hunting practice, and after holding your face silently in her hands, staring at you and making you only slightly uncomfortable, something shifts in her face. Something in her eyes. “Are you bored, child?”

“Oh, absolutely.”

It’s the first time she’s looked at you like a person.

And from there you learn to…plant.

It’s not at all as boring as it sounds.

For while you can hunt and fish well enough, when the day came that Demeter introduces you to agriculture in the ways only a God can do it, you feel something stir. Something deep, deep inside you. A wild, uncontrollable growth like a weed, the thrum of Life—but that is how _she_ describes it. You feel it different. Like a flowing river inside your veins, like threads of good smells inside your nose. Your nose guides you just as much as your fingers, and it amuses her that you characterize flora by their scents first.

The point is that you excel at planting, no matter the metaphor behind it.

And, for a few weeks, it feels like Demeter really does like you. Like you’re getting the hang of whatever this growth business is, and like it’s what you’re meant to _do._ But then, because she’s a bitch, you manage to piss her off because you make things grow far too fat for her liking. _All things have a limit of growth, you must not overextend, the mortals don’t deserve as much as you_ —and blah blah blah. What the hell does Demeter know about mortalkind? Of your mothers, of the villagers that loosely surround the forest where you live? What does she know of the way they’ve loved you for your whole life? They deserve a reprieve. They deserve—something _fun_.

And that’s when you make _wine._

It comes to you like every other stroke of genius would come to you hereafter—like a bolt of thunder in your brain, a flash of inspiration. Every bit your Father’s son (even if, after this, your inspirational flashes would often be mixed with the haze of drunkenness). You have the sense to not show Demeter first. She wouldn’t _get it._ Instead, you show your mothers, this very spicy juice you’ve made that smells so good, and that you can feel will loosen their shoulders and their legs and their backs. When you were making it, almost out of nothing, it was as though you could choose what it would do to people. And you picked what you thought to be most fun, and most good, for people in general.

To just let go.

And let go your mothers _do indeed._

Your mothers laugh, giggle like they haven’t done in _years_. Hold each other, kiss each other, cry and confess things that they were holding deep inside, getting rid of all that fucking baggage. And they _dance_ , and _laugh more_ , and it’s so, so fucking amazing, man. You dance and laugh and cry with them too, and it’s like— when you drink the thing, man, it’s like a hug but from like the _inside._ A nice, warm feeling. That’s what made you place one of the final attributes into wine. That nice, warm feeling would be your hugs, your embrace, to whomever partook of your grand invention.

The very first thing your Father did when you broke out of his hip was hug you close and shudder, after all.

And your mothers hug you every day.

Hugs are the fucking best.

The very next morning, you hurry to share it with your neighbors, because you want everything to be as fun as it had been that night.

And your neighbors also smile, laugh, cry and even fight a little bit— but it’s all good because they remain friends by the end. And a pretty girl kisses you and tells you, away from her parents, that she had just become of age the week before, and you find out how wet and good women feel when they open up their skirts—how natural it feels when your Father isn’t around to make it happen for you. Her neighbor, a big farmer’s boy, tall and square of shoulder and jaw for his age (but with just a little baby fat on his cheeks), is jealous when he sees the both of you naked atop his hay stacks. His face is red, and he’s so loud and _pissed_ , and your girl is ashamed and sad. But then you see his loincloth is as wet as yours, natural, without your Father looking proud from behind, and you bid he come join the both of you on your makeshift bed.

After a moment of deliberation, he does come, and you and the girl apologize and he calms down and shoves your head down and makes you taste something real good.

You had sex before that night. But to you, _that_ is the night where you truly lose your virginity. Without any bullshit, without any interference, without your Father grinning and jokingly(?) asking if he could have some sloppy seconds—it is _yours._

You learn of the wines that bodies make, of the different tastes they offer. You enjoy them at your leisure without any coaching, and they taste richer for it.

And you feel yourself begin to appreciate Hera’s domain a little more, because after you stand up, both your front and rear damp from activity, you turn back and see the young maiden asleep in the crook of the young lad’s neck, his big arms wrapped around her, satisfaction beyond satisfaction on their faces.

You feel a pulse of something you cannot hope to bring under your control, and it makes you smile so fucking big, man. So _big_ , from ear to ear, because its so beautiful, the way they look. You watch them for a few more moments, drinking in this holy sight, until it occurs to you that you aren’t involved any longer, and that this holiness is not about you, and that you should leave them be.

_Because_ it’s so beautiful, you should leave them be.

And you had been so _proud._ This— _this_ —was what you are meant for. You walk back home, your veins glowing with awakened ichor, and you know what you need to do for this wonderful world you have been born into.

You’re shaken awake.

Demeter is looming above you, flowers dead in her hair, _livid._

 _“What—”_ She’s shaking, furious, as though she’s doing everything she can to prevent your body from being ripped apart by the seeds that shake right underneath, hidden in the soil. “— _have you done, boy?”_

You want to tell her you gave the mortals a gift. That it was fun, and good, and that she should try some—

But she takes you—naked, so that you have to dress yourself as you run with one arm being pulled—to the village. Past your mothers, who are suspiciously quiet, and make you and her invisible with the highest of glamours.

What you see makes you…confused.

Most of your neighbors hadn’t returned to their houses. Instead, they were all asleep or groggily waking up in the same house, even though it was past high noon. Their bodies—you were adept enough to peer into their bodies now—hurt. Their heads hurt, and their ears picked up the slightest sounds. You accidentally bump into something in the house, and before Demeter can hiss at you, those who are awake (and some who had been pretending to be asleep) grimace and curse out loud, because _fuck, who just made that noise?_

And then, you hear something else.

“Who gave you permission to sleep with my daughter?”

You hurry, eager to dispel the glamour, but Demeter holds you in place with an arm that is far too strong for an older female to have. You thought such a thing, in that moment, because your knowledge of the world was so, so small.

But it would grow larger, and soon.

You watch, unable to project your voice, as your friends from the night before argue with their fathers, sheepishly holding their robes to their bodies. They weren’t supposed to get together. _He_ already had a lady they had planned to marry him to. _She_ hadn’t become of age last week, like she’d told you. Just the day before. But what was so wrong with that, if it was the day of? Yet her father didn’t see it that way, held his head in his hands before glaring at the boy like he had done something disgusting. “On the border of it, at least.” Your aunt muses, disgust on her lips.

“Come on, Demeter.” You look up at her, exasperated. She could calm them down, you know it deep inside. “When animals develop sexually, they don’t wait until it’s ‘proper’ to mate, they just do.”

And then, she looks down at you and cocks an eyebrow. “And do you think _man_ is of the same level as all the other beasts of the world?”

You blink. Think hard. “…Aren’t they?”

She looks at you, eyes wide and hard, then shakes her head and holds her nose like she also has a headache even though she’s not drank a drop of your invention. “Dionysus, you foolish boy.”

“I’m not a boy.” You glower at her, and it’s like there’s a third set of people arguing here, even if your mortal friends can’t see it. “I’ve grown up, I’ve had sex already—” and, thunderous impulse flowing through you, you speak more. “—even before _this_ , I’ve had sex. Lots of times!”

Demeter then gives you a look that you can’t place, like you’re a small child who’s fallen and can’t make himself stand up on his own. “Under whose hand, I wonder.”

…You blush, and turn away. “It’s fine. Aren’t we supposed to do it like that? We’re _Gods._ ”

“You’re…” But then she stops. You turn and you look and you see a different expression on her face. “…just like your Father, I guess.”

By some miracle, only your male friend gets a punch to the face. Before his father can whip around and aim a lethal blow in return, both youths are standing in between their parents, pleading for them to stop.

“What if you get _pregnant_?” Her father asks, defeated.

“Don’t worry, daddy, I won’t.” She assures him. Demeter turns up her nose, _as though this girl has any say._ “I won’t get pregnant.”

But you can see it. Below her stomach, a pulse. A light. A budding flower.

_You remember holy thunder._

And you tremble, because that is all you personally know.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, that trauma *chef's kiss* (i'm sorry)  
> Next chapter will be posted on 12/29 (or maybe 12/28 if i'm feeling it)


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Consequences are cold, unrelenting, and hard on your heels. But you are a God, and you don't need to do anything you don't want to do. He doesn't have to, after all.
> 
> You're grown, by now.

Your name is Dionysus, and you are young and stupid.

You are proud—will always be proud—of your gifts, of your inventions for humanity. But in the present, you are shaken and terrified because you have now seen the flipside of unhinged fun.

And, due to your inexperience in life, even for a God, you are desperate for someone to wipe it away. To make it go away, and to absolve you without making you learn anything, because learning is painful and all you’ve ever done under Demeter is _learn_.

That afternoon, curled up in the branches of a tree, your mothers hushed while Demeter paces and curses in an ancient tongue—you feel it.

Father is back.

When you peek out and see his shining hair and the ozone rippling off his muscles, you lower yourself gently from the tree, disbelieving, because you had thought Demeter had replaced him for good. But then when your feet hit the ground and grins at you, you feel small and sexless again and jump at him. And he laughs and you are innocent once more in that embrace.

“Brother.” Demeter says, icy even though it is the peak of summer. “Your misbegotten son has made something. Something for the mortals.”

Of course, because it’s your Father, you tell him everything.

And he looks at you for a moment, gives you a disapproving look, full of the _now, Dionysus, that was not something that brings you honor, was it?_ that you barely got back when he visited you more regularly. But then he leans down when Demeter seemed to walk away, and whispered. “Wait, so tell me, was it good?”

He's grinning, amused, and it makes the two of you chuckle.

Demeter obviously heard that.

Rounding on the both of you, your Father gallantly intercepting with his gentle holy light, she hissed at him. “What the _hell_ do you mean?”

“Well, I just meant that if the boy’s concocted a fun diversion—”

“ _Diversion?”_ The grass around Demeter chokes, _cries out_ , and dies.

“Dionysus, go with your attendants.” He says, waves you away, and you run to your mothers. Demeter looks your way for a moment, holds up her hand, but then Zeus pulls her attention back. And they fight over you. Demeter is cold, calculating in her remarks, and full of _bite._ Points out the negative effects of what you’ve made, how you irresponsibly tapped into the forces of creation without learning how to properly allocate positive and negative energies. Your Father is relaxed, jovial, sarcastic and absolutely _on it_. He tells her that he observed everything from up above ( _Everything_? Yes, every little bit, Dionysus ;) ), and saw how good your little drink did both groups of mortals it touched. Yes, he admits that the after-effects can be unpleasant for _them_ —but they weren’t for _you_. Gods are not affected negatively by your drink, which you made, unconsciously thinking more of a God’s embrace, than the embrace of man or woman. Wasn’t it fine, then?

“You think the way that it’s tampered with the mortals is _fine?_ ” Demeter rubs at her temples. Somehow, they have not drawn their weapons against each other, and the chaos of their argument is self-contained. You would learn, in time, that most often when Gods are this angry at each other it is _not_ so orderly. But they were keeping it at bay, somehow. As expected from the two that won the world. “They’re disoriented and distressed. They’ve missed out on _half a day_ of work already, and—”

“Oh, what’s half a _day_ of work going to do?” Your Father shrugs, rolls his eyes and you, in your wildest dreams, would have never _dreamt_ of giving Demeter an iota of the sass he's pouring out now. “Really, sister, you should learn to _relax_ a little.”

Your aunt's hair freezes, her knuckles glisten, and you can swear they're getting thicker, thicker. “You _amoeba,_ you—” and she slips again into that ancient tongue that you can never figure out. Your Father shrugs, giggles, somehow manages to make it worse and calm her down at the same time. Or maybe Demeter is just done letting him rile her up. The space around her feet is frozen, and she adopts a stance so poised and doesn’t move much from it at all.

“If this wine, shall we say,” Your Father twirls his hand in the air, making it crackle a little. “induces negative behaviors in the humans, its most likely a result of the evil they already held inside. It’s not like it _makes_ them evil. And _besides_ , they get so much joy out of it, it surely cancels out any negative repercussions. Surely it does!” And then, hitting his chest with his fist, your Father beams at you. “I certify it!”

He believes in you.

He _believes_ in what you’ve made.

It’s too much, and you almost cry like a little whiny baby, but you hold it back because men don’t cry, just like Father told you. Men laugh, and laugh, and laugh some more.

Demeter breaks form. She cannot believe what she is hearing. "Zeus, what—Brother, you haven't even commanded—you're misleading—"

“Well…if this is over and done with….” Your Father makes a show like he’s tearing himself away from something sticky. When he’s fully ‘separated’ himself, he grins at you, like his sister isn’t even there. “Dionysus, want to go prance around and frolic? I have some time before I need to head back, and I have _got_ to show you this new feline species we’ve made!”

Your mothers look at you, unsure. Some of them open their mouths as though to say something, but nothing comes out.

You are young, stupid, and desperate for absolution without learning, and so you leap at the opportunity, leaving Demeter and your mothers in the dust as you and your father throw caution to the winds. You forget about the laughter, and the sex, and the way your friends kissed you, and the pulsing light inside of your friend’s womb, cheerful and bright. You forget about the anger and the headaches and the questions and the sense of bewilderment on their faces, the grogginess in their eyes. You forget about Demeter and your mothers, and even about your Father Zeus, as you run around the fields and leap and leap and leap, head forward and eyes closed.

And you…leave.

You realize, looking out from a cliff over to shining rivers, valleys, and a large distant town, that the world is so much wider and larger than the forest and the small village that you knew for so long. And you turn to your Father and tell him of your plans, and smiling widely he tells you its _such a grand idea_ , and you just run, away from it all, because it’s a big world out there and you want to spread your gifts to everyone that can appreciate them.

…But you also want to learn. Because your Father always made it fun to learn. And Demeter always made it rewarding in its own way.

You like learning. A lot.

So that is what you do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always I'm a sucker for comments


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ok so I fell a bit behind with that upload schedule thing, so I'm gonna be uploading 3 chapters tonight to make up for it.
> 
> See, the great thing about Hades (the game), is that the existence of other gods outside of the Greek Pantheon is all but assured through Zagreus' weapons. And since Dionysus was often considered a foreign god in some respect or another...  
> (God damn i LOVE stories about all the pantheons)

Your name is Dionysus, and you’ve become a traveler, acquainted with the distances of land and of the feeling of sand, grass, and sometimes stones between your toes. As your feet, sometimes covered with sandals, sometimes not, walk across the land, you learn of the people and the animals that inhabit it.

Athens. Cornith. Sparta. Delphi. Rhodes. Greece is your oyster, and its people are your friends. Your lovers. Your enemies, but you almost always make them your friends in the end, because your gifts flow freely and even the most hardened men appreciate the taste you bring to their lips. You meet many kinds of people, people from different cities. You are impressed, both by the versatility of cultures that you find in different places, and by the things that always remain the same, for everyone here is Greek.

Except those who are not.

You speak with slaves, with merchants, with freed men who sometimes rub at their ankles or their wrists and thank the Gods they are not tied down. You learn of slavery, and it doesn’t have a good vibe no matter how much you think about it. That there are people who sometimes earn your gifts without coin but rather with forced work—and that sometimes, they cannot partake of your gifts at all—it gives you pause. Makes you pity mortalkind, who choose to engage in miseries such as that. But you are impressed by these people who live on in the shadows. Even more so, by those who choose to stay once they win their freedoms. These are more magnanimous than you, a God, might ever be, and you wonder if it’s because they are mortals. Their stories are as varied as the colors of grapes and berries.

You are also impressed by those who choose to leave. Who turn their heels amicably, or after kicking up dust with their sandals. You talk and they tell you that there are other lands out there, of course. Different from Greece.

Different countries.

Hermes appears next to you as you watch a group, no longer shackled by mean men with sour faces, turn their backs and walk out of the borders of Greece with a strange wind blowing at their backs. He’s chewing on a piece of straw, and is looking at their feet. “Weird, right?”

You don’t know what exactly he’s referring to, but you nod. “You never told me there were lands outside our own.”

And he meets your gaze with the light of curiosity, of exploration, of the excitement one can only feel when one knows something that someone else has yet to enjoy. His hand waves out, to that road, and you feel a thrum beneath your feet. “You never asked.”

Your excitement, which had not had much time to dampen as you travelled across your birthplace, piques again and shoots to the heavens. You set out to visit these mysterious places, with their airs and their sands and their grasses that are so much like your Greece’s and yet so not. Of course, as anyone with manners, you visit these places with wine, ready to make yourself a positive presence. You experience so many different cultures, and take on so many different names, all given to you by lips that laugh out loud, that give you honest praises, that plant wishes of love against your skin and make your back twitch. All kinds of names, from all kinds of people. And you feel the love of humanity weave itself into you over the years as you unconsciously—then consciously—set up your mysteries for them to puzzle over.

But you do it only because every other God has them, and because your followers beg you for ways to understand your holy nature until, deep under the influence of your own alcohol, with a woman’s arms detangling your hair, you give it up and begin to take religion a little bit seriously.

Because it makes them happy to worship you. To know you in this more formal way.

And if it makes them happy, then that makes you happy too.

You won’t ever say this to one of your Grecian peers (because your family is a proud one), but a great part of your formation as a divine figure occurred in these foreign lands outside of the jurisdiction of your Thunderous Father.

It is like you are continuously young, a foal with shaking legs and wide, beady eyes (though you have enough sense not to act the fool and actually have shaking legs), excitement unlike anything you have ever felt continuously coursing through your veins. Japan. China. Ethiopia. Judea. Egypt. Scandanavia. Tenochtitlan— And so many others! You almost can’t believe how big this world is—but that’s because you have to split your attention between _that_ , and the idea that your wine is always welcome, and always expanded upon, with each and every visit you make.

Most of these foreign Gods know of your Father, of your lineage and family, and you are embarrassed when you meet their brewer deities and see a worry in their eyes. _Is he going to be jealous? Did he know that there were others?_ You almost can’t help how you’re announcing your lineage to Zeus a little bit quieter with each and every country you visit, until you have to balance right back and make sure it’s not an afterthought (parentage is an important detail). Sure—you’ll be honest. It shocked you to your core when you first smelled alcohol and were taken to a proud man with a red beard. Ale, he called it there. You hadn’t conceived of the idea that there might be other alcohols, other _wines_ in other places!

“What?! Drink only in Greece?! Oh, _sure_.” Odin laughs along with his son Thor as Aegir refills their goblets. “Zeusy’s son is almost _too_ green! What’s that man been _teaching_ you, child? How to make a sports team in one night?” And then, embarrassed to high heaven, you showed him your wine and shut him right up. Aegir, a little more gentle and in private, tore off the rest of the bandage.

Laughter at your expense? Anyone would feel like shit.

And like, you know your Father. Sure he's got a bit of a reputation, but it's _dad_ , and you're sure that these other Gods are just trading stories.

Some of those might be right. Your Father Zeus is powerful, and he's not a softy like some.

But _you_? Dionysus? _Jealous_? 

You inherited your father’s dashing good looks, the bod, and the ability to make people’s hair stand on end. You most certainly did _not_ inherit this ‘jealousy’ that these foreign Gods spoke of.

Because you had this sudden notion, this _gut feeling_ that petulance would rob you of something special. And it most certainly would have. Sake from Inari-no-Ookami. Ale from Aegir. Beer from Bes and Nepthys. Rum for Ogoun. Tequila from Mayahuel. There are just so many ways for a man or a God to get drunk that you would _never_ be able to learn about all of them if you wasted time fuming about copyrights or intellectual property. No, you _relished_ in sharing your techniques and learning theirs. And you made friends! So many friends in these foreign lands that Hermes had been _surprised_ at you. Kept on repeating a similar line to every King or Queen he caught you dining with: “That’s my cuz. Yeah, he’s a _real_ social butterfly. I don’t even need to grease his wheels, _that’s_ how much of a talker he is.”

See, Hermes tried to get you pegged there, but you’re not a _talker_. You’re more of a…

Ok. You’re a talker and Hermes knows you _too_ well.

So you’re _good_ at telling stories and listening to them, and then flirting and taking foreign Gods to bed. What? It’s not a crime, since everyone involved always told you they loved it.

Obviously, at one point you started getting a reputation as a wandering God of Drink. Cup-Filler, they called you. Funny because it made you look like you were a mere servant walking around, but servants had to get their wine from _somewhere_ , right? Either way, you liked the name, so it stuck. But you never rode in on your laurels when you popped into a new country. No, you always came _prepared._ And that was always a good choice, because you started getting a little bit popular. Not enough to overtake anyone (you’d _loathe_ to make people hate you), but enough to always have a nice cot or bed whenever you decided to change scenery.

Of course, your cousin Hermes did help you make certain acquaintances. Introduced you to some of the more, shall we say, _elusive_ Gods and Goddesses.

But all of them teach you a lot.

After all, one can only have so many orgies and drinking parties with immortals before they get the bright idea to ride Horus’s chariot without any light, around the world, and have fun with mortals in different countries.

And you do that for a while because there’s always at least one person in every country that likes to take celestial vehicles for a joyride.

But you start to notice it again.

The headaches.

The morning-after looks that mortals give you.

The way they would clutch at their heads. Sigh. Sometimes run and vomit.

Oh, of course you learned of ways to improve your techniques so as not to practically _drag_ out the gross green shit with every glass poured—but you had to be told by your foreign friends that humans feeling like shit after a _great_ night was just…par for the course.

“Pitiful lot.” Aegir would say to you in his brewery. “They work so hard, and they’re strong in their ways—but also so _weak_.” He’d hold up a bunch of barley in his large, large hand. “Sure, it’s _fun_ to know they’ll _never_ be able to outdrink you, but _still_ , you can’t help but feel sorry for ‘em when they _puke_ all over themselves, right? Why, I have this devotee, he just let it out once, all over his father’s favorite bear pelt. Odin above, that was…”

Weak.

You love such weak beings. Such weak things who know how to make you laugh and groan and who sometimes, sometimes, you see in your dreams, shadows in their house holding hands whie their fathers yell at them for having sex outside of their engagements.

That’s how you begin to ask yourself what it means to be a God of Revelry. What it means to be _responsible_ as someone who poured drinks in a country or city-state.

And then, when you have enough of going around in mental circles, you begin to ask others.

Some tended to forego the idea of the job altogether, whether or not drink is their main domain. “You _aren’t_ responsible, boy. So many Gods think they’re responsible for whatever these humans decide to do with themselves, I _swear_ its like you people get _off_ on your fucking fake-ass martyrdoms.” Tezcatlipoca says once, glaring at Quetzalcoatl, who is far too tired to argue with his brother for the 13th time that day. You had been walking around his warm empire of rainbow birds, wide leaves and spicy berries with the moon shining down from above. Debating and talking about the nature of life, and of what you might be responsible for. Quetzalcoatl had encouraged you to always try as hard as you could for your people, for their love demanded your reciprocal attention, sometimes even more. But Tezcatlipoca had quickly covered his brother's mouth and told you to forget all that 'happy-go-lucky shit', as he put it.

The three of you turn your heads to watch as a father and his adult friends belly-laugh with their younger children. You smile, enjoying the energy—until you feel something like a long bug crawl up your skin. You turn around, try to get at it, until you see the jaguar shake his head and roll his eyes. "It's not physical, idiot." And at his words, you _feel_ it. Lips that are too soft and too young tilting a cup back, grimacing, coughing, on _you_ because you are drink and mirth—but the child was encouraged by his father and those older fellows. Encouraged to put his mouth on _you_ \-- _but he's not even old enough to_ \-- “You see, we Gods are mirrors—especially those like us, who work with the shadows and whispers of the heart." You shake your head vigorously, trying to shake the child's feeling from your body because _no. Never._ The Jaguar keeps talking. "We can only accentuate what they feel, but if our feeble people choose to do things like this?” He spoke calmly, but the jaguar’s eyes were sharp and behind his gentlemanly hands, drool from his open mouth dripped between his legs and onto the stone he sat on. “I mean, if they can’t handle their _fun_ , are they _really_ worth keeping alive in the first place....?"

You chuckle nervously. "C-Come on, man, everyone deserves--"

"Oh, sure, at _first_ , but what about a few years after, when they know what it's like to be dark?" The fur on the back of his neck was standing up a bit too thick. Shadows leak from the space between his fingers, and the father's eyes glaze slightly with memories of things he very obviously dislikes. The older man's mirth dampens, and he oscillates between trying to calm his over-eager boy down, and letting things roll out because what can he do?

_Yes, what **can** the grown man do?_

You wonder if you would see Tezcatlipoca devour one of his subjects right then and there. Quetzalcoatl, silent, is looking the other way, hands clasped. “But what of the children?” You remember your father's flushed face, stand--

Hermes had been with you then, _dead silent_ , leaning on you. And then, a green wind blew, and a woman came out from behind the men, yelling and hissing. But not with Tezcatlipoca or his brother behind her. No, you saw the aura of Agaves around her head as she ordered her son to spit onto the ground, chastised her elder children, and smacked her loser of a husband so hard across his head that the jaguar’s fur bristled with pleasure. The pressure of his mirror was gone (for now). “Well, it helps when you have nosy people to watch over them.”

“ _What was that?_ ” Mayahuel raised her eyebrow from the shadow of the mother, and Tezcatlipoca had turned to his silent brother, feigning innocence. She smirked, stepped out from the mortal woman, and then offered you a cup. “See, he talks a lot of game, but that’s just because he _cares so much_ , don’t you? You big fucking lug.” She laughed as the Jaguar hissed at her, and you couldn’t help but laugh along with her, smelling of sweet, sweet Agave.

But caring—that _is_ important. Some cared _a lot_ , especially when it pertains to negative actions. “It’s…difficult.” The Lord of Storms, King of the Japanese seas, speaks as he sits with you atop a storm cloud. His three adopted daughters lay asleep someways behind, the strongest barriers reserved just for them. You met the Lady of the Sun Amaterasu only once, for her schedule was always busy and, try as she might, she could not very well meet with a foreigner no matter how much Uzume-no-Okami insisted that you were fun (you _love_ Uzume, and Amaterasu seemed like a nice gal). But Susanoo? You talk to him a lot in those days, get a taste for sea-salt and thunder. He knows who your Father and Uncle are, assures you that he could do both their jobs with one hand.

Yet, he always has this bit of a pensive look on his face. This eternal crease of his brow, so different from your Father (and you haven't even met Poseidon yet). But that night as you floated above the shores of Oosaka, his clouds making the seas rough and angry with his winds, he told you of the time he made the very daughters that sleep soundly behind the two of you. Of how he, in his grief over losing his mother (whom Lord Izanagi forbade you to ever, ever mention in front of him), he had acted like a fool. How he drank too much of a victory over his gentle sister and carried it so far that one of her best friends died as a result of his ridiculous havoc (his words, not yours).

When he speaks of Uzume dancing and spinning, showering herself with Sake and flicking concentrated mirth at everyone to make the scene fun, he chuckles.

But his eyes are red.

“Mirth can save people. Mirth can bring them out of dark, dark places." Dark live caves, dark like eternal nights. "But if it’s misused…”

It's hard to make the parallel perfectly. What he speaks of is immaturity and rambunctiousness, not alcohol-driven rapture. You only nod because you have a feeling that if you spoke of Wakahirume by name, he would stop being charitable with you and drive his sword through your chest. Instead, you remembered the humans, the way they stumble through life. A frown paints itself across your face, and you decide to check a detail to make sure. “…You were drunk?”

“In a sort of way. Not with alcohol, like the maggots below like to be. But we Gods are not invincible, as I’m sure you know.” And as the guilty God spoke of his regrets, you meditated on the nature of these heavy, dark emotions. How they seemed to rise so much _harder_ than the joys your gifts were able to produce, especially when triggered by outside influences.

Uzume saved the sun by making a fun time and getting everyone drunk. But Susanoo, so human despite his divinity, almost like you, had been the one who had created cause for that dance in the first place.

Humans, you notice no matter what country you are in, tend to drink more when they think of their departed.

_Because they miss them._

“What troubles you so are the sins of the world, Cup-Filler.” You speak once with Michael, a being that is not a God at all, but who walks and talks like they might as well be--save for all that humility. Over the waters of the ocean, walking to no particular nation, the angel stepped with you on the water, between the sun and moon. Hermes had been with you then, too, listening to the glistening servant. “You look upon the Stain of the Enemy.”

Some Gods tended to seek divine punishment out for those who misused drink. Others simply noted the relationship between excess and the spoiling of good times. And still…other _beings_ tended to wax philosophical about it all. “You’re talking about that _thing_ again.” You rolled your eyes. Some places you went to had a bit of a stick up their collective ass. And sure, the Jews have their wines, but the process by which their mysterious God controls the process is _extremely_ involved—to the point that you had to put your hands on your hips and sigh at Uriel. Surely it didn’t _have_ to be so exact, did it? But it did, according to that God whose name you can’t fucking pronounce for the life of you (according to a recorded message delivered to you, in any case). In the conversation with Michael, you decided to give the angel a direct raise of your eyebrow. “That, that missing the mark thing with the apple and the stupid woman and the asshole guy?” And, of course the really _big_ asshole; biggest of them all, Michael and his siblings swore this up and down without missing a beat.

Some spoke the name in fear. Others with derision, or with exasperation.

Michael never—not _once_ in all your conversations— spoke Lucifer’s name at all.

“Yes. That _thing_.” In that moment, you couldn’t tell if Michael had laughed or grimaced. Somehow, that was kept away from you, even though the two sounds were usually completely different. But Michael's voice is always like a hundred crystal bells, and you can't really tell how they feel.

“You know, I’m so glad we monitor crossovers. Imagine if Pandora and that Eve got together for a chat?” Hermes mused, floating on his back.

“Oh, I don’t think they could, but that’s not my department at all.” Michael toyed with a feather. “Either way, yes. That is what ails you so. But this is not a bad thing, Cup-Filler. You are starting to concern yourself with morals.” For a moment, the secretary of the actual Judean God sounded like such a nag, but you let it slide because you wanted to be nice, and Michael never seemed to do things to be outright mean. Not outright, anyways. “What _drink_ and _diversion_ do is loosen the restraints around the soul. And from there, well…” Michael shrugs. 

You don't hate Michael. You're a bit fascinated with how weird the monotheistic worlds are, how complicated (shouldn't having only one God make things simpler?) things always seemed to be, despite their efforts. You respect the hustle, to use a casual term.

But Michael is the type that you _know_ would love to get you into a bit of a philosophical spiral, ever so-slightly nudging you towards what you're sure they want you to realize. And while you get that their whole deal is beloved and divine wisdom, you're not really into that vibe 100%. Sure, it's most likely because you come from a polytheistic family, but you've realized, all through these troubles, that your own divine wisdom is flawed, and imperfect. For all your wisdom, you could not have foreseen the pain you caused your beloveds back then. For all that insight, you could not ever keep out the negative aspects of alcoholic drink from mankind. You'd have to invent an entirely new thing--and you're _working_ on it, promise.

Point is, you'll make your revelations on your own, and you can only hope Michael ends up feeling happy for you. Sure they will, cuz Michael is nice, but you gotta make a point of it. “…But it’s still fun. So like, that’s what matters.” You shrugged back. “Like, honestly that’s all _I_ really care about, so…”

“Yes, a joyful heart is good med—Wait, that’s what you’re taking from this?! Dionysus, that's not—”

You snickered as Horus picked you up in his chariot again. "Ok, love you, angel. Time to _party hard!!"_ Horus howls with you, and you leave Michael with Hermes, letting your elder cousin pat the angel on the back as he says something in Yiddish (you never _could_ pick up that tongue, could you?)

So many ways of looking at the question of alcohol, of merrymaking.

But of course, you would always keep _fun_ at the center of all your celebrations. Fun crying, fun laughing, fun fighting—even fun _philosophizing_ if that really, really tickled someone’s fancy. Sure! Joyful hearts are good medicines _indeed*_ , featherman. You think you'll keep that, somewhere, maybe just like, adapt it? You wouldn't want to get sued.

Your travels shape you. Mold you. Your short hair grows long, dyes itself with the purple juice of your grapes, and you grow tall and handsome as you walked and ran and swam around the world. Strong from all the arm-wrestling and lady-hoisting and man-grabbing you did. Suave from all the gorgeous people you took to bed (or who took _you_ to bed). And then, one day, you look back over the jungle towards a direction you just _know_. Tezcatlipoca gifts you a jaguar cloak, and you start to make your way back.

Back to Greece.

Back home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "A joyful heart is good medicine" comes from Proverbs 17:22. There's a reason the Buddhist laughter meditation works, fam. Fake that shit till you make it.  
> (I'm just like??? So interested--like, Zagreus uses the aspect of Lucifer IN GAME, like this shit is CANON. I've never seen a game about polytheism make references to the Abrahamic religions before? I've been just thinking about how peeps feel about that aspect and it spun around a bit here)


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Back home again, woop woop!  
> (Also, big love to all my lesbian fams, y'all are the best)

Your name is Dionysus, and the first Grecian that sees you nearly drops the grapes she’s carrying back to the winery, and you help her catch them before they hit the ground and she _knows_ , knows who you are. The woman doesn’t know whether to fall at your feet right there or wait, manages to hold out until you reach her master, and _bam_ , you’re back in Greece.

When you return, and your cult invariably spreads, the wine you left behind has been adopted by various city states. How could they forget about such incredible fun? But they obviously remembered, deep in their hearts, who gave them that drink, and where the methods of its preparation came from. It is with ease that you become a household name within Greece upon your return, and you tickle the beards of the men that built your home country, making them sigh in the pleasure of warm bellies, of your embrace, liquified for any who dares partake and not abuse.

That lets you meet your family.

You, of course, have met with Hermes, already. Always somehow in whatever country you found yourself in, you got yourself a habit of praying to him like a mortal would whenever you travel around. Sure, he’ll laugh, _a god praying to another god?_ But you always feel your roads be a little bit safer after a quick prayer, because he’s your cousin and he loves you and he’s always watching over you wherever you go. Knowing that Hermes is there lets you relax, until your swagger becomes a part of you and you walk around as though you also had wings blooming from your feet.

You meet with Ares, eyes full of blood, a man who is cordial and gentlemanly and who could snap your neck in 100 different ways, and he’s fun even though he tends to be more on the serious side. War is a _downer_ , but the parties that come out of it are _amazing_ , and his enthusiasm for life, for making everything a battle and a conquest with and for oneself, mesmerizes you. You follow him into parties born from victories, full of joy and yelling and victorious chest pumping. You follow him into drinking sessions born from defeat, where you learn (once again) of how painful it is to have to die and leave people, and that’s where you fall in love with humans more, because you _do_ know what it’s like to not have a loved one, despite being a God. When he learns of your origins, he’s silent, but then he kisses you and tells you that you can always count on him. Ares, in all his savage nobility, reminds you to hold your head high as a man.

You meet Athena, wise like glass, who enjoys your wares with a _very_ measured hand, and you talk with her a _lot_ about different things. Things you’ve seen, things _she’s_ seen, and you laugh and chuckle with her because she knows _how_ to listen, even though she likes to pretend she’s all that and not on anyone’s level. But she is, and you love her so much, because she makes learning fun _and_ rewarding. You joke about making wine with olives after you speak of the drinks of other lands, try it, fail, make her ugly-laugh so hard that the two of you bond from the joy of experimentation. She tells you of the engineers and wine makers who are refining your art in your stead, talks about fermentation and proper farming techniques for grapes and proper storage containers for the wine, and shows you how math works into what you’ve always done as instinct and holy grace. You realize, because of her, that you love math, even if it makes you want to down an entire bottle. Athena teaches you that there really is beauty in complexity, and that you are as complex as anyone else.

You meet golden Apollo, who works with Helios, and who _loves_ how easy your wares make life. He shines, and he brings out the hidden color of your drinks and it makes you feel so nice and warm, maybe because he’s set to inherit the sun from old man Helios, who also likes a good squeeze of grape. He also knows how to have fun with youths, and when you’re not drunkenly enjoying art, you’re running around with him, having fun and making fresh men and women squeal in delight. They love it. They love the both of you for it, especially when you share. But of course, you also drunkenly look at art. Drunkenly listen to plays. Eat good food and read poetry and _holy shit_ , these people are fucking _geniuses._ You dance with him and you both realize that in good quantity, wine and song make for delightful partners. Apollo teaches you about that secret joie de virve, hidden just behind a couple of leaps in logic and interpretation (and of course, of more sex. Sex is the fucking best)

You meet young Artemis, who works with Selene, and who does _not_ touch your shit, because it’s shit and it’s made by a man and it’s _fucking disgusting_ , you fucking chauvinist man-pig. As dangerous as she is (when you first met her, she nearly made you piss yourself with an arrow next to your chin), she’s _hilarious_ , and you have fun working yourself up to her, letting her and her merry band of soft-core lesbians ( _yes, she’s obvious)_ laugh at how shit you are with the bow, because you once had some promise and let yourself go. You just prefer other weapons, what can you say? She has spunk and she’s got life and when she gets vulnerable, she has the best conversations under the stars with you and no one else. With her, you don’t need to drink to loosen up. With her, you don’t need to drink to think about things that you would never confess to anyone else. And it does you good. Maybe too much good, because you sometimes end up silent night as she just gazes out into the fields and you gaze up at the stars, lost in your own thoughts, nervous hands woven on your stomach. She’s blunt as fuck, but a great listener in her own way. It’s dizzying. She’s dizzying. And maybe your friendship with her is _why_ you get along with lesbians as well as you do.

You meet Aphrodite, young and fresh as sea foam, who makes you hard as a rock the moment you see her because **_hot-fucking-damn_** , and who in your first meeting rewards you with the sloppiest kiss imaginable, because your gifts to mankind have made her explore so many different possibilities! She just had to thank you herself. You talk with her about love. About sex. About the ways they intertwine and the ways they do not, and how the throes of the heart are ultimately more dangerous than any weapon. You tell her about your friends, who died long ago, and she’s delighted at the story, both because it proves her point, and because she’s a sucker for star-crossed lovers. She travels with you to the village where you were born, and you see that their descendants have made themselves prosperous, and that they make many different kinds of wines in your honor. When you realize you’ve been so busy that you weren’t even able to feel this pure-hearted devotion from your first devotees, you have to sit down to cry, because truly, you are so _worthless_ , and _they_ are worth everything. And she, like love itself, is there, holding you close, encouraging you to keep going for their sake, who are watching you from beyond the grave. From that day, you call her your best friend, in and out of the bedroom, and if it weren’t for the fact that Ares had already married her, you would’ve gotten on one knee yourself. Maybe that’s alright. Maybe it’s enough that she reminded you to keep loving yourself, like a vase fixed with gold-laced glue. Your friend, Inari-no-Ookami, would appreciate that idea. You hope that despite everything, Amaterasu and her brothers can think of themselves like that, too.

You meet Hephaestus, perpetual fire in his beard, who keeps to himself often, except when he demands that you make drinks that don’t fuck with blacksmith apprentices so much. He’s an odd sort of fellow. Sad, mellow despite the hot fires he works with. And crippled. You’ve never been one to stare because you’ve always known better, but he’s _super_ beat up below the waist, and he doesn’t talk about it right away. It makes you feel bad that it’s hard not to sneak glances unless he catches you and glares. When, after some time, you listen to his bachelor story and hear of a side that Aphrodite and Ares never talk about, you sigh, needing a drink. You tell him about how you came to be, how fucked up and fun Zeus is—and you, for the first time in your eternal life, say it plainly in front of someone. Say it at all. He tells you where _he_ came from, how he _completely understands,_ and you toast to him, because he’s definitely the more fucked up between the two of you, and you laugh like the bitter assholes that you are. But hot damn if he isn’t more of a man than you will ever be. You always give him the very best of your store, because you care, and you privately think that this one here drinking any alcoholic beverage is an _honor_ unto you and what you are, what you want to be. He teaches you how to work with jewelry for the hell of it, because even though you’re just plain bad at it, it’s still fun, and who said a God can’t do things for fun? Hephasteus reminds you that you, in your divine nature, have a _life_.

You meet Poseidon and marvel at the aquarium on his head. He’s the one that teaches you that you really don’t hold a candle to him when it comes to fishing, but then you tell him that his sailors can drown if they abuse of your gifts, and you’re square. He’s fun. Definitely your uncle, but because he’s not your father you’re a bit more relaxed with him. He likes his sex, as everyone in this family does, but he’s not as thirsty for it as your old man. He’s somehow found a bit of a balance between the desires of land and sea, between the touch of someone in a safely rooted cottage, and the hard grasp of a sailor as they wrestle with the sea. It’s almost sexual, the way he handles his ships with these mortals who are crazy enough to call sea-sickness fun. But like the sea, he has his moments when he’s calm, serene, and speaks to you so calmly about how to be responsible. About how to let things, people’s words, and your own doubts, roll off your back like water. He reminds you that a father figure can be more than what you initially learned. Something about the sea makes even Gods wistful. You suppose Susanoo would know all about that.

You meet Demeter. Again.

It’s winter. It’s cold. And she’s standing outside the sleeping consecrated vineyard of the great-great-great-gret-great-great-great-great-great grandson of your lovely farm boy and farm girl, who’re no longer here. You appear next to her in a silent bending and un-bending of space, and you share a good half hour, silent, watching the seeds sleeping under the earth. Under your influence, these little ones would be shaking and dancing, power and life flowing into their flowers, making the resulting berries fat, fat, fat.

But Demeter keeps all of these asleep, reflecting, dreaming of whatever seeds dream, something you cannot peer into, for while the seeds of the earth love you and kiss you as you walk, they _adore_ your aunt. You’re not bitter, it makes sense. The seeds kiss your feet, treat you as a brother, but they revere Demeter, and worship her as their God.

You look at her, at the way winter makes her old. She always _was_ into the cycle of life and death.

“…You are grown. Finally.”

“Finally, yeah.” You agree, a cold wind threatening to cut between the two of you with its howl.

But she lifts a couple fingers and the wind diverts around the two of you. You stare, puzzled, because you always thought she let nature do as it needed to do for the sake of the proper maintenance of order. But she just gives you a bit of a smile. “It’s fine. The world can handle a diverted wind. I’ll make sure of it.”

“You’re so considerate.” You say. And then, you invite her to sit down upon the altar that your friends’ descendants made for you.

(It’s not right on the place where you fucked, no. It’s a little to the side. But it’s fine like that, because the area that once held that hay bed now holds the place where they burn your offerings to you, and you can imagine that through the smoke, your friends can see you smiling at them in Hades, waving sometimes, because you’ll never stop loving them, and loving _them_ as a couple)

“…When you made wine, drink for the mortals, I thought it would lead to the end of the world.” Demeter breathed. “I sometimes still do.”

You sigh, your breath coming out as white coils in the cold. She’s not wrong. For every laugh, for every awakened love and happy climax, for every releasing tear that comes as a result of your wine, there is also treachery, and rape, and insults. Humanity loves you, and you love them, but they will probably never handle their drinks well enough to keep their evils out of it. And you can see a good possibility, that sometime in the future, misused drunkenness might lead to the end of a larger world. It already leads to the end of so many smaller ones. So many clenched teeth and lonely cries from people who ask you _why_? Why did it have to be that way? Why did they have to get drunk? And you, in your idiocy, will never have an answer for them.

But you are a full-grown man now, and even though you’re a God you will use these mortal terms because humanity is your people as much as the Gods are, and you will never forsake them, even though they bring you honor and dishonor in equal measure. And as a full-ass man who knows himself more than he ever thought he could, you won’t necessarily give this lady the satisfaction. Instead, you change the topic towards something better for the both of you. “You taught me so much about the earth, about growth. Without you, I wouldn’t have any of my success.”

Some philosophers who know you have a working theory that they think will offend you if they say it to your face, so they try to be coy and hide it. An idea that, if you as a demi-god hadn’t fully awakened and submerged yourself in your divine power, you would have defaulted to mortality, and died. That your eternity is a result of your own hard work and volition, your own grasping of it through some mechanism of the eternal stuff inside you—as they are raised with stories of Gods who were born to have it all, this logically makes them uncomfortable, to the point some would describe it as apostasy from the entire pantheon, on your honor. But you don’t get offended by the idea. You sometimes think about it, out loud, in the presence of Ares or Athena, who are good with this kind of stuff. And sometimes you catch them looking at their hands or at their reflections, and you see the shadow of thoughts that you know are theirs alone.

In your own way, you want to pay deference to this woman for the possibilities the humans describe. Because even if these philosophers are wrong and you would’ve lived forever regardless, an eternity without a properly found purpose, without purpose at all, sounds worse than any punishment Hades could ever hope to give anyone.

She laces her fingers together. While you aren’t bitter, _she_ certainly is. “…You still didn’t pry hard enough. You only scratched the surface—”

“Come on, auntie—”

“—the _surface_ of the Earth’s potential for you. And to think! To think that once I considered you my—” But she doesn’t finish her sentence. She covers her mouth, as though to say what she wanted to say would be a taboo, or invite some misfortune.

But you don’t need her to finish that thought, because as high as her seat is, you never wanted something like that. For the seeds to grovel at your feet and the nymphs to wonder how you’ll touch them with trepidation, and not eager excitement? You wanted something of yours, and by _fuck_ , through years of lonesome travel and self-realization, you got it. And you don’t even need _Hermes_ to attest to that. It’s all your own.

So you just hold up a pair of golden goblets. It’s not likely to be as fine as anything they have up on the Mountain, but hey, she’s going to have to deal with you. You wiggle the cups, the contents sloshing beautifully inside. Fine work. “Come on, one drink won’t kill ya.” She’s unsure. You raise an eyebrow, smile lazily, extending an olive branch. “It’ll just get you barely tipsy. I promise.”

She gingerly takes the cup, her fingers on top of the engraved leaves. Drinks the wine with both hands like some sort of kid. You wordlessly sip your own cup, and feel the purple fire purr inside you.

Demeter looks down at the cup. Traces a shape in the air—and the air condenses, the water droplets freeze, and ice falls into the cup? Ice?

You lean forward, eyes wide at the sheer _innovation_. “Oh, oh _fuck—”_

“Calm down, boy.” She snaps. “Did you never think to chill your drinks before? I swear, you’re so creative in some ways, but in others?” The sudden side-eye is enough to give you whiplash. “I swear...”

You blink, then laugh, laugh so hard, because she’s a bitch and she’s so, so right.

“Did you know her?” You ask as you finish your 10th cup. True to your word, this drink won’t get either of you past tipsy, no matter how much of it you consume. In a sense, it’s good because it won’t be too much too fast for Demeter. But it’s hard because Demeter is not Artemis, and talking with her is not so easy that you can do it without a good, drunken stupor. But you fight through it anyway, because you have to, because that’s the kind of man you want to be. “My mother, I mean.”

“…” Demeter is silent for a moment, gently lowers her cup from her lips, holding it tightly in her grasp, ice crystals forming on the surface. You can hear the wine solidify inside, whispering what sounds like regret. “…I didn’t.”

“…..”

“Your father—”

“—Zeus.” You say, because you’ve travelled and lived a lot and your humans have told you more than enough stories to take the luster from your eyes. Thunder rumbles overhead, and because you care for the people in this city that you love so, so much, you give proper respect. “—my _father_ Zeus.”

The thunder calms, and you hear the families in the priestly house sigh in relief, and nestle back to sleep, as they deserve.

“…Zeus, my brother, has always been a womanizer. Oh, all of our family has incredibly high sexual appetite. All but me and little Artemis, most likely.” You chuckle, ain’t that the truth? You keep a comment about Demeter getting down and dirty with farmers to yourself, because you want to hear her talk, and embarrassing her is anti-ethical to that end. “But Zeus loves womankind. He _adores_ them, he hungers for them like a bear might hunger for its next meal.”

You close your eyes. Remember nights when you were much younger, before your days as a proper God, when your father coached you along on how to make mortal women cry out, and how to stick it in the best way, and how to tease them so they unraveled before you—all in the same room as you, his cheeks permanently flushed. Sharing in your conquests, encouraging you to run through one woman and young lad after another until you almost saw them as walking holes. Back then, you had felt something fun from it, from being Daddy’s big man, from having the _coolest fucking dad anyone’s ever had_ , even though he never really let you enjoy yourself. And now?

“ _I know._ ” Curt. Professional.

You don’t need to say anything else.

Demeter is more than prudent. She keeps going. “Hera always struggled with it. Still does. He hasn’t stopped.” Your eyes focus on the clouds overhead when she says that. “But she’s reached a point where she’ll defend herself out of principle, without really letting it get to her. She just lets it—what was the expression he used?”

“Roll of her back?”

She meets your half smile, nods, chuckles, because Uncle Poseidon’s such a character. “…She’s…found a balance. Whether that’s the right balance, I will not say, because I cannot. But back when you were born…”

And Demeter tells you. She tells you of the jealousy that only the Goddess of Matrimony could feel. She, who wielded Coronacth in the Beginning, who helped Lord Zeus institute Law and Order by taking out the eyes of the Titans and making them cry in their ancient blood. She tells you of the way her heart darkened so much that she went down to Thebes ( _you’re from Thebes! But that’s so far away from your forest)_ , past King Cadmus’ royal guards, and into the private chambers of a young woman named Semele. She recounts how Hera disguised herself as—as what? An old woman, in a princess’s bedchambers? But she obviously made it work as a Goddess. And thus, Hera made herself Semele’s friend, and planted the seed of doubt into the heart of a pregnant woman.

_You are beloved by the King of the World, are you not? Yet he refuses to show you His full splendor, even though you’ve taken him to completion! Don’t you think you deserve to see it? Surely, you are_ strong _enough to withstand his_ raw _energy, are you not?_

Humanity can’t handle their drinks.

Humanity laughs and bites with the same cup.

So, of course, that was all it took.

That was all it took for a young pregnant woman with a noticeable baby bump to wonder if this man, this God, who was known to all to be married to the Matron of Marriage—if he really loved her. Perhaps there had been other emotions in the mix. One can never know, with humans. But either way, with advice from Hera, Semele trapped Lord Zeus by making him swear under the Styx before he knew what his woman wanted him to grant with his Authority.

_Anything, anything but that! Please, Semele. I beg you—reconsider. You have no idea what you’re asking for. I can give you anything, I can_ teach _you anything you could ever want. But please—_

_— Zeus. If you loved me, you’d be honest with me in every way._

“…And he ended up being honest with her, right at the very end.”

Your head hangs low as you digest the story, not really thinking. Echoes of the other stories you’ve heard bounce in your head, and you remember yourself, listening, but detached because it wasn’t you they were talking about. You remember listening intently, thinking about how religion works and how mythologized you all are, because it makes for a good story, because it makes for greater emotion and more worship. You remember debating with all your siblings and cousins, and with human philosophers, over the nature of your father, coming to terms with his complexity…

…But you—you _remembered_ searing heat, searing thunder in the womb! You had always known!

…But it had to have been some accident.

Your father loved your mother _surely!_ And their union was good, and pure—

_Then why was your mother not Hera, who held Zeus’s ring? Whom_ everyone _knew married Zeus, at the start of recorded history?_

You tremble.

When you realize Demeter has finished speaking and is looking at you in concern, you stand, walk a few steps—and then, urgency in your stomach, dash out of the temple so as not to sully it, your divine speed gone, every step a chilly trial. The memory of your lost beloveds spurs you on, until you reach the depths of the forest, where your foster-mothers had lived and died after you had left without a word. In your current state, suddenly as drunk as a normal human, you think that you can see their bones, still fresh despite the centuries, clear and untouched in the snow—

For the first and only time, you, the God of Merrymaking, vomit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aw shit, feelings  
> *default dances on the puke*


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ((TW: attempted self-harm/suicide. Don't worry, nothing terrible happens, but we do talk about it and he does contemplate it))
> 
> It's one thing to grow up thinking your father saved you from a terrible fate that just happened to befall your mother  
> It's another thing to learn your father had a LOT to do with that fate himself.
> 
> When people sleep with you, it's because they like you, right?  
> It's not because you're a God, and you're asking and _you're a God who's asking, right?_
> 
> Holy shit.  
> Holy shit. What are you, even?
> 
> (Your father's son) but you won't let yourself think that, because if you do--

You are Dionysus, and you never forgot the taste of the bitter drink that Demeter, without meaning to, taught you that winter.

The years passed by as you thought about it. As you ignored it. As you tried to reason with it all. Centuries more as you let yourself embody the weakness of the humans you criticize and love so much, as you let yourself drown and pass the days and weeks and months by with alcohol, the golden hours rendered utterly useless by your depressed debauchery. Sex ceases to feel good. Your penis ceases to get hard unless you specifically morph it to be so, and even the finest berries taste of ash.

You do not go to Thebes anymore. Ever.

You cannot. It is the only city you do not visit, and thus, the population grows somewhat famous for it’s low levels of drinking when compared to other areas of the country of Greece.

It’s almost funny…how they pride themselves on rejecting your gift, while the only reason they can do so is because you decide to keep it from them.

But you are letting yourself go, and your family does not know what to tell you. But they can see it. The way that Thebe’s rotten influence is spreading slowly across Greece. How total abstinence from drinking is becoming seen as a virtue, and how people decry alcohol as a sole source of vice and misbegotten accidents.

Of course, they’re not wrong.

Whenever man drinks, man fucks up. And you’ve always known, because you’re a fuck up as well, and there’s no way a fig tree can bear another kind of fruit, to borrow an expression. And slowly, you feel yourself waning. Waning. And it’s so, so ok, because you don’t care about anything anymore.

Because the world is ruled by pieces of _shit_. Because all those humans were right on the nose with those stories _._ Because your friends from abroad were right when they would ask you about your father, then assure you that their families were fucked up too, but you didn't want to believe it. Because somehow, in your drunken stupor, you’ve missed when Demeter got herself preggers and then lost the little girl in a matter of almost two decades—when Gods were supposed to measure time by centuries! But the thought brings you no joy, because Demeter grew to like you, and you probably ruined her too, just like you ruin everything you touch, and maybe that’s why the world is now covered in an eternal winter where your crops won’t grow as well as they should, and wine, as a rarity, is easier to distance from and demonize.

You deserve all of it.

You were just a stupid misbegotten mistake, and then through your travels obtained so much worship that you ascended and became King Shit, the Father of All Misbegotten Mistakes. You know Zeus is still out there, fucking, and your wine makes all his conquests so much easier. Where your hands squeeze grapes, he squeezes breasts, and and where your fingers wipe away juices, he wipes away salty tears. And the thought of other young women being seduced by a God who knows how to inject electric love into his tongue ( _with help from you, his trusty son)_ is enough to make you, one night, look at a shard of glass from a cup and consider what Ares calls the Ultimate Disgrace.

…Is it though?

You scowl, ugly. Ares isn’t right about everything. Not even close. Not even when Athena and Artemis and all your relatives agree. He’s not right. How could he know how you feel?

You see a golden eye reflected in the glass, and you lose track of what face you’re making, alone in your room. Your lips part as you bring the shard to your—

_“…great-grandfather did?”_

Something, in the clarity that is your empty mind, sounds, like a stone skipping across a pond.

“ _…together.”_

You sigh, tremble in _fear_ (look what you’ve become) at the worship. But, hungry for it, for the right to continue to exist, you seek it out, and float towards it, through the dead oaths that men and women swore in your honor in ages past.

…You are now in your very first temple. And you are looking at a man holding his pre-teen daughter close.

_“Wait wait, so my great-great-great-great—”_

He sighs, exasperated despite himself. He has a long line. _“_ Yes _, my dear—”_

 _“So my grandfather and my grandmother from long ago, they had sex, right here, with Dionysus?”_ The girl wrinkles her nose. She’s not old enough to fancy things like that yet. Or maybe she’s completely monogamous. Good for you, girlie. Good for…

…You bite your lip. Awake again.

“ _It wasn’t just that. Our Lord Dionysus grew up here, with them. Played and learned with them. And when He saw that they were too afraid to confess their love, He grew his vines between them so that they could meet in the night.”_ The father smiled a priestly smile, capturing the cadance perfectly, then snickered a little. “ _With sex. Yes.”_

 _“Damn.”_ She says, naughty word for her age.

You laugh, because what else is there to do?

_“That’s how our winery got started, see? We believe drinking can bring people together, and give them the courage to figure things out. Our ancestors did it, eventually got their parents on board with the union. Wine loosens up your love so it can flow.”_

_“I thought Aphrodite was the goddess of love.”_

The father nodded. _“Eh, well they work together.”_ Boy, did you _ever_ …

…But not since a long time ago, huh?

…What was…Aphrodite doing now? Was she still loving the world?

_“I guess like, I don’t get how wine’s good. People do all sorts of crazy stuff when they get drunk.”_ She said, and you can feel the sting of her fear, and you know it’s so, so warranted. You reach out, nod at her, because she’s so right. Another golden eye peeks out at you from the reflection of a bronze bar just behind her.

_“Not everyone has to drink. Some people swear oaths that have them offer up the joy of alcohol to their patron. Others just don’t like the taste.”_ The father winked. _“Why, your uncle? He_ hates _red wine, can’t stomach it.”_ He chuckled, a warm, good laugh.

And he hugged his daughter close while you stare at him, eyes hollow and dry and awed. _“But if wine didn’t exist, something else would exist in its place. People like to have fun, after all. What matters is that we drink responsibly, and that we know our limits.”_ After a moment, the father gently poked her nose. _“Can I tell you a secret?”_

_“What?”_

_“You don’t even have to get drunk to enjoy wine. You just have to savor the taste, and it makes the whole meal better.”_

The daughter thought about her father’s words while you, the very God this faithful man worshipped (despite all the unanswered prayers), trembled before him. The little girl spoke. _“I dunno if I like wine, either.”_ Something falls in your chest at the words, even though you know she’s better for it, know that you only make curses for man to trip upon. The father might think his daughter just doesn’t have a developed palette, but you can tell—she really doesn’t have the aptitude for wine at all. Deep down inside, you can tell that this little girl does not mix with your gifts in the slightest. A complete rejection of your— “ _But I like how it makes people smile when we eat.”_

You—

You—

_You—_

As pathetic tears fall from your soul, never to be noticed by anyone in this room, the father nods. “ _Exactly. So long as people know to take care of themselves, wine is a good thing.”_

This little girl will never enjoy wine. Deep inside she will never develop the taste for it. And yet, her chest shines with devotion and appreciation—for _you_. She loves _you_. You see it in the light from her form, memories of the meager drops of wine in the poor excuse for celebrations of this rotten frozen age. Memories of how it made for a brighter evening, for how it warmed her stomach just a tad even though she _hated_ the sips her father offered her. You see the smiles of her parents, reflected through her eyes, and though its all dyed with the impressionistic views of a child, you see a very similar scene inside of her father.

They love wine.

They _love you._

_“But wait, Daddy. What about the Maenads? Those ladies that run around at night when its warm and drink a whole bunch?”_ The little girl asks her father, a focused look on her face.

You choke on your own spit even though you’re naught but a projection, remembering your Maenads, who share in the deepest domains of your madness, the women that inherited your mothers’s positions from so long ago, and then—then the Father says—“ _O-Oh,_ those _ladies? Dionysus has a_ very _special place in his court for them, and…”_ He pauses, smoothing his nervous face, and inches close to her. _“Just between us, I don’t really know. They’re crazy!”_ And he makes his daughter laugh by attacking her with his beard and with his tickling fingers.

And you—

You _laugh too._

You laugh because holy _fucking shit_ , you have a cult of women who just cut loose and go _batshit insane_ when they drink wine, and yet you’ve managed to hold onto respectable people like this despite that? It’s fucking ridiculous! It’s, it’s _inconceivable!_

And you’re in your room, alone, choking on your spit, laughing roughly as hot tears sting your eyes and your stomach hurts from the strain. The shard of glass you were holding lies, discarded, stained with red and gold. Your hand stings, but your neck just hurts with the force of your laughs.

Your heart is beating so fast in your chest…

….your body hungers so much for worship, flickering as it seeks out more of that pure-hearted love…

…And yet, eyes red and nose full, you have never felt more alive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Time to pick ourselves back up, boys, gals and nonbinary pals


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time to meet ourselves a man

Your name is Dionysus, and you have a mission to complete.

A mission for you, yourself. Because in this frozen hellscape, you’ve come to the end of your rope, and now, a leap of faith is in order.

You’re a pathetic shell of what you used to be. You’re weak, frail, and your legs shake a little sometimes as you walk. But somehow, you manage to get on board a ship and set sail, towards an area of Greece where you’ve heard rumors about. Rumors of a gate to Hades. You’re already at death’s door, why not try and pull of something _spectacular_ at the end?

The pirates that surprise you and hold you hostage (for yes, even near death, you’re a legit snacc) think of you as some sort of prince. They’re big men, rough, with thick beards and thicker bulges. They pinch your butt and say the dirtiest shit. Under different circumstances you would love nothing more than to get into their pants and let these big strong pirates have their way with little old you. But you’re not fucking _into_ this dom/sub charade right now, and in a burst of anger you push out a bit more of your power than you were planning on using. Does it leave you drained? Fuck, fuck it does, nature is merciless as it takes payment for its performance. But the men recognize you for what you are—what you’ve been throwing away for years—and you use the chance to have them worship you as you sail.

It’s a meager meal, but in your state it’s more than enough to restore good amounts of your dignity. Combining that with a good diet of their fruits, meats, and meditation, you reach the shore looking every bit as regal as you need to (on the fucking _outside_ , at least). Your rejuvenation only served to increase their devotion, and by the time you touch shore, the men are kissing your feet instead of your cheeks, holding onto your legs instead of your ass and arms.

Who would want their God to go?

But you must.

You make sure to establish great connections with each and every one of these idiot bears (you memorize their names), and leave in a flourish that’s sure to get them to worship Dionysus for the rest of their lives (or at least until you can get to Hades). It’s better than before. Now, instead of one house loving you, there’s two. Just like when you were young.

_The wide-eyed boy back then had loved life so much._

And you were determined to love it again.

That being said, reaching Hades is still hard as shit, and you begin to get low on resources again. Before reaching danger levels a second time, you decide to think for a fucking second in your misbegotten life, and try to find information. You’ve reached in the general area. _Someone_ here has to know about the rumor of the way into Hades. Someone HAS to.

That’s how you meet Prosymnus.

It’s a bit warmer in this area. Warm enough for you to listen to the babbling brooks among the snow and the earth, and you meet a man who’s got a short, bushy beard, curly hair, and weathered skin. “You…” You say, trying and failing to appear as you want. Aw Fuck. “…you’re the fucking know-it-all, right?”

“E-Excuse me?”

“I—” You focus. FOCUS. It’s now or fucking never. You take a breath and force your will into your presentation. It hurts like one bad son of a bitch, but at least you can appear coherent. “—I’ve heard tales of Prosymnus. A man who knows the secret ways of the world, and who understands the steps that nature takes. Is this you?”

The man’s eyes go wide. He’s humble. He recognizes who you are. “It is I.” He nods, solemnly.

“Fucking _got it,_ bitches _.”_ You make a lewd gesture to the world. “Suck my diiiiiick….” You wheeze out, smiling like an idiot, and collapse.

You black out, and you are fairly certain that your last words were “suck my dick”.

The embarrassment is agonizing, and you think that, perhaps, this is Hades’ genius. This is the way he tortures people. And this is your lot in the afterlife. You sigh in your mind, ready to take the rest of your mistakes in an endless rondo of—

When you wake up, you’re in a house with a gentle fire and the smell of a solitary man’s activities. There is only one bed.

“…Heyyyy.” Prosymnus says, naked next to you, hand on his dick. He hadn’t been paying attention to his surroundings in the slightest.

Despite everything, despite how shit your life is at the moment, you zero-in on the only point of interest in the house. Not bad looking. “Oh, hey.”

The man known as Prosymnus has salt and pepper hair. He’s fit, but nowhere near the level of muscle that you’ve seen on mortals in your prime, and you know it’s because he’s older and very obviously poor. Parts of his beard are red, parts white, parts black and brown, and when you tell him he looks like a calico cat, he snorts because he’s been told that since forever ago by people he doesn’t care to try and remember. He tells you he tried to live among humans like most everyone else, but after a while his social tendencies (or lack thereof) pushed him away from the lot of civilization. And now, he likes to live, eat, and masturbate alone. And no, God of Grapes, as much as it pains him, he does not have an extra cot or a bed to spare. Not in these times.

…As far as possible guides go, it’s not as bad as you were fearing.

For all his anti-social cred, the man is kind, though stone-faced, and practiced in the healing arts. He nurses you back to health, tries to go to sleep as late as possible to give you space, and you realize you can make yourself survive more by lowering your sphere of influence. You let go of Athens. Of Sparta. Of Crete and of Cornith and of Delphi. It’s easy to let go, they’re barely sustaining faith as it is. You let go of all the treasures you’ve obtained and make yourself small enough to subsist on the attention of one man—well, of one man and _you_ , because you like you and you want you to survive. You let go of it all—except your first temple, because the faces of the young man and woman who touched you and held you in a moment that was yours and theirs keeps you from parting with it. It’s the source of who you are as a God, and of a lot of who you are as a person.

You remember the father, holding his daughter, and telling her tales.

You keep that place. Just that one.

It helps that Prosymnus believes that you are a God immediately. “And here I was thinking I needed to show you my ichor.” You joke, extending your wrist, making a gesture to his skinning knife.

He rolls his eyes. “Are all the gods of our world so macabre?”

“Not all the time.” You shrug. “I’m just going through a shit few decades, my man.”

“Aren’t we all?” And he stuffs your mouth with hard, salted meat.

Early on in your relationship with Prosymnus, you tell him of your goals. “I can take you to the Underworld. Round the edge, at least...” He says. “But first, you need to recover. I won’t be one-upping Charon any time soon.” Even you in your lofty party ways know of Charon. One would need to be a fool to enrage or mock _him_ in any way. Prosymnus is wise to heal you, to avoid any implication that Charon is frail and needs his souls brought to him by delivery boys.

So you agree, because it’s all you can do.

The first day passes by uneventfully, with your body shivering and trying to keep you alive with fevers and weird flow of worship energy. Slipping in and out of consciousness, you catch Prosymnus in blinks, doing his daily activities, or sitting over you, or tending to his gear. One time when you regain consciousness, you catch the man jacking off again, in front of his fireplace, standing up with slightly bent knees. He apologizes, apparently content to forget the presence of his own guest for a few good minutes. You tell him you literally don’t give two shits (look at you), and he just shrugs and continues, giving you an idea of the kind of person that willingly decides to live alone and not devote themselves to prayer.

The second day, you manage to stand. Prosymnus helps you up. You smell semen on his person. Tell him to take a bath. He tells you to stick your grapes up your ass because the lakes are freezing and he likes to be alive and warm. You say it’s fair. That night, he jacks off again, on his feet, clothes on and an arm against his wall as he edges, very close to the heat. You watch, because there’s nothing else to do. Maybe it’s the lack of energy, or maybe it’s the way the fire of his hearth lights up his face and makes his contorted visage look handsome, but you just look at him and his body, content to ignore the sleepy fire in your own tired loins.

The thought of touching yourself doesn’t even cross your mind, you’re too focused on the way he grunts and huffs and bites his lip, and you fall asleep to the self-serving noises he makes, dreaming of him, always being alone.

The third day, you wake up and catch the moment his eyes flutter open next to you, his breath and yours mixing in the haze of weakening sleep, making soft white clouds in the winter morning. Silent, you share a moment looking at each other before he sits up and stretches without embarrassment, his armpits dark with hair, his tool hard, so domestic in his simple yawns. “Mornin’…”

You offer to help him with cooking, because you’ve used him as sexual theatre and now you feel bad. You know that if you tried to hold a bow you would get woozy, and the idea of accidentally shooting his head off is not something you want to test. He says he doesn’t want to take charity from a weak person, God or mortal, but when you touch a thin piece of meat and make it a little more plump, he drools and accepts, his earlier morality forgotten. Prosymnus eats like a fucking pig, but he licks his fingers in a way that’s so sensual and unaware(?) it gets you riled up, despite yourself. He makes this noise from the depth of his throat. “It’s _good!_ What kind of divine magic did you _do_ to this?”

“I…I gathered spices. They literally grow right outside your house.”

He squints at his meat, at you. Smells his meat like it’s something foreign, and you can very easily see him as a loyal dog at that point. “You mean those weeds right out back?”

“ _Weeds?”_ You run a hand through your hair. “My man, you’re not serious _—_.” And that’s when you learn that, without any sort of vow to poverty, Prosymnus has outdone almost half of the world’s ascetic persons without even trying. You scoff, call him an idiot, and spend a good hour teaching him about the wealth of ’weeds’ he’s too lazy to uproot (thank the Gods). He can’t believe what you’re telling him, and you drag your fingers across your eyes and moan. Aprodite hadn’t told you that hot men could be so fucking _stupid_! She never did! You feel betrayed, lied to, hoodwinked, and bamboozled. If you make it out of this shit, you are going to have a word and a half with that woman and her beefy husband.

The fourth, fifth, and sixth days continue like this, only you’re both past the initial period of being amazed at Prosymnus’ utter lack of awareness for a man who knows so many divine secrets. He hunts. You cook. You teach him how to season his meals, he holds your hands and reminds you, after years of not doing it yourself, of the art of skinning animals, of the way to do it with respect to these little creatures who live and die and who are beloved by all the Gods of everywhere for their daily sacrifices. His weathered fingers are so deliciously rough on your skin that you end up just letting him guide your hands, his breath hot on the back of your neck as he rumbles about the anatomies of small creatures, technical and intelligent and focused. So he’s good for something after all—and _so_ good at it, god-damn it all, the way he squeezes your hands when you cut correctly is a reward you never knew you wanted. You try to commit it all to memory, but he’s so close all the time. And when his chest presses to your back, all you can do is nod as he goes quiet and leans over your shoulder to see how you’re doing.

Oftentimes, when you skin animals with him near-hugging you, you are hard, and he is too. It’s not like you can’t feel his dick on your ass, and he’s had more than a few opportunities to see your own cock throbbing against your worn loincloth. Neither of you talk about it, despite the pink heat on your faces. For all the blasted sexual tension, it’s Demeter’s mournful winter, and you are hungry men.

Hungry men who eat with their hands, shoulders touching, silent, save for the occasional compliment on the seasoning and cut of the meats.

But meals and hunts do not take up all of your time, and seeing as there’s nothing to really do outside of the house but seek out animals, you and Prosymnus are often in each other’s close company, on top of his bed, with nothing but your words to trade among the light of his fire. You learn much of each other through talk, and because you’re on death’s door, you hold nothing back, sometimes leaning back on your hands and kicking your legs. Maybe because he’s a lowly human and he struggles to eek out survival day by day in this harsh weather, he’s honest with you too. You don’t sense it with your divine knowledge, couldn’t right now if you tried. But you just know he’s honest. His voice weaves itself into your ears and you believe every word he says because he doesn’t try to make himself look good, even though, some would say, he really should.

You listen to him talk of his dreams. His many, many dreams that never really came true, before he just stopped dreaming and started to listen and observe the world and no one cared enough about his future to pull him back out of the forest. Of the few times he attempted to love, how he never really learned how because all the women in his life expected things he could never give. It’s how his hand got so used to shaping itself around his dick, how his skin became set with his scent and no one else’s from years of living alone. Prosymnus is a failure among men, and his prejudices and misconceptions are annoying (to the point where you argue with him about them), but he tells his tales well, and he listens to you. “Your father’s a piece of shit. Never liked praying to him.” He says, without so much as a glance outside when the thunder rumbles overhead.

You let yourself enjoy the unprecedented words, so grateful for the courage he holds, courage that loftier and more educated men all seem to lack, despite having the faculties to know better. “You’ve got some balls, human.” You try to seem stern for the hell of it. You’re a God, and even though you’re in agreement, you figure you shouldn’t give him the chance to forget it. “Mayhaps I should crush them for speaking of your Lord in such a way?”

For a moment, you wonder if you’ve gone too far. But he just slaps your arm, rolls his eyes. “Dionysus, you _shit_ -talker.” And you wheeze with laughter as he just rants on and on about how much he hates the Gods, including you, and how he doesn’t even know why he’s helping you, because so many people are like you and he hates all of them. Because they’re so _stupid_ and _blind_ and they’d rather focus on stupid things, rather than being like him, and learning through solitude. And then, he laughs bitterly, because he’s a loser in a cabin in the middle of the forest, and he’s going to die here, cold and hard and all alone, just like he always wanted. You settle on him being as much of an idiot as the rest of humanity, and he accepts it. “Always knew I was a fuck up.”

He masturbates at night, and has you smelling is hot spunk until you decide you’ve had enough blue-balling and go to sleep yourself.

Day, by day, by day. You sit with him on his bed, and share your stories, your secrets, your deepest shames—until even your shames run out and you’re both scraping the bottom of your barrels, and you have to just sit with him, tending to the fire, keeping it alive. Listening to each other breathe, shift, look at each other without saying much of anything. You’ve met great men, spun yarns with them for months, sometimes years because they were such good company, but in a few short days Prosymnus has reached your core, and you his. There is nothing left to tell, and you look up in horror at the ceiling before you go to sleep, a hole in your chest. “What if I’m just shallow? What if there really isn’t much to me at all?”

He holds your hand under the covers. “I think, maybe, people at their core are simple things.” It helps you sleep, this thought that all you did was go to the grain with him, not waste your time with unnecessary stuffs. It helps you dream of things you’ve never experienced but that you know are out there, somewhere. And in your dream, you wonder how Prosymnus would’ve turned out if he had taken a different path in life. Would you have been able to reach this level of depth with him, that none of your priests were ever able to, that none of them ever thought it proper to try and aim for?

The thought that, perhaps, you might not have been able to, makes you sad. But then it also makes you happy, that in this worst of worst of outcomes, you have found such a friend as he.

Prosymnus checks you over on the morning of the Seventh day, your manhoods hard but not lecherous. “You look fine. We can probably make the trip today.”

“Can I stay one day more?” You don’t know where this question comes from.

He nods, your hair in his hand, and you let yourself look at him.

On the seventh afternoon, after your lips have tasted of his rabbits and his crows, Prosymnus puts his hand on your knee.

“You’re very handsome, Dionysus.” He says, breath warm and white, as he looks from the hairs on your chest to the hairs on your chin. And then, he meets your eyes, and you can see the desire in them, hot like fresh syrup.

“Of course I am.” You say, blushing, trying not to get hard, because this isn’t morningtime, nor skinning time, and there is nothing preventing sex from happening if you show physical interest.

Of course, you fail miserably.

“…Let’s fuck.” He says, eyes intense. It’s like he’s drunk, but there’s nothing here that you could make into wine, and that’s how you know that he treats life with the same sober intensity that someone else would with drunk intensity. This man, who never once prayed to you, is a natural. His natural mode of being does something to you. Something warm, something disarming, something that makes you weak and by the time you’ve regained composure, he’s on top of you, bed creaking, dick hard and tenting, staining his damp loincloth like it hasn’t been stained so much before _._ And yet it’s so different now. “It’s so fucking cold. I need it. I _need_ it.” The sounds coming out of his throat are so sad.

He’s not going to rape you. But he’s going to unravel if this keeps up. Caring for a second person in the middle of winter like this has run him thin, despite the veneer he put on, and you hate that you had to bother him like this.

So you hug him.

You hug Prosymnus and shake your head and keep him close by locking him in place with your legs, ignoring the delicious hardness you both share. “If I cum right now, I’ll fade. I’m _that_ run-through, man. It’s no joke.”

“….Really?” Slowly, he regains himself. He’s out of his desperation, and real regret is in his voice. “Even after all the healing you’ve done?”

You feel yourself at the edge of being, and nod into his hair. “Trust me.”

“Oh, oh _no_ , dear Gods, I’m so sorry, I—”

“Shhhh.” You say, kiss his head, hear the howling of the winter wind outside, and push his face into the crook of your neck. “It’s ok.”

“….”

“….”

There truly is nothing left to say.

The two of you stay like that, huddled and hard for warmth, until the storm passes.

When it’s over and silent, he looks at you, the last vestiges of light in the day hiding his face somewhat. Shame, a new shame for him to tell someone else, fresh on his face.

“…You want me.” You confirm, poking at his raw emotions.

He nods, unable to be anything but honest around you. Needy and scared, in his frailty. Sometimes, humans love so purely, even at an age like his.

“Tell you what.” You stroke his curls, let yourself fall a little into his pools of want, and rub your noses together, breathing his air, just like you do when you wake up. He smells of the food the two of you prepared, and you focus on his eyes, on the details inside them. “I’ll rescue my mother from the underworld. Or try to. When I come back, I’ll have been refueled by the divine energy of the place. I’ll have more than enough juice to rock your world.” And you turn on the Dionysus charm one last time, speaking low, touching his chin, teasing his lips.

He blushes, his dick leaks onto yours and it takes everything you have in you to abstain, hinging on the promise of later. Of a better time, with him, when its not so dangerous and you can shower him with the affection he deserves for caring for you as you were. For listening to your woes, for sharing his, and for butting perspectives. “…Could I have your hand instead?” He’s soft when he asks, and you can see him young, vulnerable, not quite in touch with the social graces required to pull of a successful courtship.

You realize that you misjudged him earlier. Just a little bit.

It’s so cute that you almost kiss him, but you stop yourself because if you did that, you really would fall for him then and there, and you don’t have as much self control with love as you’d like. No. You just chuckle, hold him close, stroke his cheek. “Selfish little guy, ain’t ya? My worshippers won’t take this lying down, you know.”

He shrugged, smiling.

…You hadn’t seen him smile before.

Prosymnus’s boat glides across the cold waters of the lake nearby his cottage. He is looking around, checking for signs in the trees, the rocks, the water. “We should be getting close. Just a few more meters.”

“No.” You shake your head, tense. “We’re here. This is it.”

“How can you tell?” He asks, holding your hand like a lover would.

“Look.” And you point to the water. It takes him a moment, but when you plant a kiss on his temple, his eyes glow and he _sees_ it. The wiggly area where crystal water turns to blood, where the faces of the lost peek out.

“….Oh Gods.” He breathes, truly a mortal man in the face of eternity, and you kiss him again on the head, this time for courage. It’s all you can give him (despite the fact that you would love to give him more).

Fuck. You fall in love too easily. If you stay any longer, you’ll throw everything away and unravel before him.

Stepping out of the boat, you walk on the water, your divinity giving you perfect purchase, not letting you down as you impress your man. And sensing the special waves your toes create, a new boat comes after a couple minutes, a figure wearing a wide-brim hat holding the oar. “ _hHHHhhhhhhh.”_

“Chiron.” You say. Fear grips your stomach, Hermes has only spoken of his dear associate to you, but to see him in person is another thing entirely, to behold the decaying skin on his skull, the purple gaze of he who loves money above all else.

You’ve been through worse. When you realize that, your hesitation becomes easy to toss away. “I am Dionysus. Son of Zeus. I request passage into the Underworld.”

He opens his mouth, haze drips out of his bony jaw. “…… _..For him?”_ He points at Prosymnus, who balks, whose hair stands up just like the calico cat he reminds you of. But brave Prosymnus does not shy away, despite his weak mortal frame. He keeps standing where you left him, reaches out and holds your shoulder. _Hard._ You give him a soft look. He lets go, fingers shaking.

You shake your head at the boatman. “For _me._ In the name of the Cup-Filler, I—”

“ _Cup-Filler…._ ” Chiron breathes, chuckles, and turns his boat towards you. “ _…a God, once. But now?”_

And yet, he gives you passage onto his boat.

He’s amused by you. His skin arranges itself over his skull, and makes a purple smile.

You shrug, because he hasn’t told you anything you don’t already know. “I get it, man. I’m ridiculous.”

All he does is chuckle as he takes you away from Prosymnus, who floats on his boat, useless.

Until— “I’ll make the house bigger—no, I’ll demolish it! I’ll sell the wood and the stone, and I’ll travel with you, if that’s what you want! I’ll give you everything, Dionysus! I’ll learn whatever you want me to learn, so don’t worry! When you’re back, I’ll be waiting for you, okay?! Right at this lake, right where we met! And then, we’ll be together, alright?! It’s a promise, alright?! I swear it, on the River—”

At that, you raise your fist—your thumb—up. Strong, unshakable. Turn your head just a little so he can see your confident smile as you disappear into the darkness. At the sight of your teeth, he stops his oath short, and you sigh in relief that you hope he can’t see.

But…Damn, you still got it don’t you? You smile to yourself, full of confidence.

And yet, when the darkness engulfs you and Prosymnus’s presence disappears from one moment to the next, your arm trembles as you lower it, and Chiron meets your sorry gaze with judgement. “I’m such a fuck up.” You whisper, because you do not deserve something like that at all, and Prosymnus was about to do something horrible, just horrible, for you.

“ _Love, untempered….is irresponsible.”_

You promised a man your body. He promised you his whole heart in return. And now, a disheveled God who let go of his powers is going to _beg_ for his mother back from the Lord of the Dead.

…What the fuck are you doing?

…You sail through Elysium. Heroes fight, fuck, and feast in glory. Some watch as the boatman carries you. You turn, see a few exalted whom you know, their voices familiar as they ask you to show your face. They gasp when they recognize you, concern and confusion extinguishing their mirth. You were their favorite God, after all. But here, all worship Hades.

You wave back, smile hard. Know that it’s not convincing.

Not to those exalted men and women who had enough sight and wisdom to rise above and be more than base. No, the areas you pass through have the life drained out of them, because why is the God of Revelry travelling with the boatman? What has happened, up above? But you cannot tell them, no matter how much they ask, because where would you start?

Where would you even start?

You go through the endless fields of Asphodel. The eternal meadow stretches out into infinity, and only Chiron knows how to weave through the distorted spacetime to get through to the lower chamber.

You see them—or so you think—your farm boy and farm girl. They are old, as they died of ripe age. But when they see you, youth returns to their forms, and they hurry to your side, as though unsure and terrified. “A-Are you—”

“…Hey, baby girl.” You smile, and your farm girl throws herself onto the boat, crying, while your farm boy pleads with Chiron to not hit them with his raised oar.

…Somehow, Chiron acquiesces. “ _Not….past…the meadows….”_

“But, but sir—”

“Hey, you guys got a calm eternity. That’s not half bad. Enjoy it.” You comfort your farm girl as she shakes her head at you.

Your farm boy, idiot who had thought you had wanted to steal her away, holds your hand. “What….what happened to you?”  
  


And so, through the endless fields, you tell your story to the two who helped to start it.

You tell them _everything_. The nature of your birth. The circumstances of your placement near their village. The way you made wine, what you did after you left, and all the places that you visited. You told them how Demeter revealed your true parentage to you, the real circumstances of the union, and how you were weak and unable to handle the disgrace, slowly falling into a depression that zapped away most of your worshippers and powers. How this was essentially a suicide mission, one last hurrah. Either Hades gives you your mom and you start a new life with her at your side, or you die and spend eternity….

(You want to say ‘with her’. You want to say ‘With the two of you’. But all three of you know that whatever deeds you’ve done will add up, and that Hades will put you where he, in his wisdom, deigns to put you)

After all, you were stupid enough to, as an immortal, get close to death in the first place. “Kind of a waste, huh? So many would kill to be in my position.” You chuckle, ignore the horrified looks on your friend’s faces, tilt your head up to spy Thanatos observing you. When you lock eyes with his golden gaze, he gets a weird look on his face, and zips away.

“…I’ll testify for you.”

“So will I.”

You feel love, and shake your head, because they’re so dear to you, but no.

Chiron stays silent, but his lack of words reminds them that they actually cannot interfere in the proceedings.

“As long as you two are loving each other here, that’s all I need, alright? That’s what makes what happened holy, at the end of the day.” You wipe your nose with your arm. “You know. I met this fucking dork just outside of here. Real nutcase, lives alone in his own house and jacks off in front of whoever.” You shrug, utterly out of cards. “I think I have a thing for him.”

Your girl looks at you. Looks at her man. Looks back at you, then cups your face and shakes her head. “You never told us you had bad taste.”

The joke ripples from the boat, to the fields, where hungry shades notice the rare humor and chuckle at it. They were listening too.

You breathe, and feel your fragility.

Just like glass.

Filled with a wine you never thought you’d taste. Not in a million years.

The hall of Hades is filled with shades coming and going in all directions, with a single line pointing straight to the throne.

Or…or is that an administrative desk?

You suppose you’ll see when you get there.

“Next.”

The first time Hades says that, you feel your body hair stand up at attention.

“Next.”

The tenth time Hades says that, you lift your head.

“Next.”

By the one hundredth time you’re barely paying attention, lost in your own thoughts, cooking up lines to say and then scrapping them because what you’re coming up with isn’t good.

“Next. Next. Next.”

“……” A deep sigh. “Alright. N—”

Silence.

For too long.

After what feels like a long while, you look up. What the fuck is taking the shade in front of you so—

The visage of Hades greets you. You blink.

_You’re the next shade._

_Oh, oh fuck._

“….” Hades squints at you. Really squints at you. Goes to grab non-existent glasses from his face, then, blinks when he realizes he isn’t wearing any. A smaller hand lifts them up telekinetically, and he murmurs some thanks as he puts on these dingy, half-moon things and squints again. “… _What_?”

You open your mouth. You had planned so many openers. Jokes. Declarations of power. Poetry. You had even debated using foreign languages to get his attention. But all that escaped your mouth was a simple “Hello.”

“I’m sorry, who are you? Hades, do you know this person?” A young woman with shiny blonde hair, who really does not fit the overall aesthetic of the Underworld, sits next to the big man himself, speaking to him like she’s _familiar_ with him.

“I…” Hades leans back in his large throne, rubs the bridge of his nose. Behind the wide eyes of the Lord of the Dead are stars and galaxies, whole cosmic lines that betray his position as the first-born of Chronos, the Time Lord. Other Gods would need to ask your name, or see your powers, but you suddenly feel very naked in front of this man. There is a reason, you realize, that the Fates nudged the lots of the Universe and bade Hades to rule over the eternal state of the mortal soul. It’s because he is the only one suited for the job. He knows exactly _who_ and _what_ you are. “Persephone, this—this is—”

“Persephone?” You’re out of your mind, naked in front of he who judges the souls of the dead, and dangerously close to delirium from the lack of worship. Your tongue is loose and you say the dumbest shit. “Sounds like the name that Demeter gave her kid….Per…Per…” In your completely out-of-it state, you don’t notice how the two are suddenly glaring at you, and how every shade has stopped, staring at you too. “…What?” It comes out like when you’re drunk among youths and you chuckle like a stupid moron—except there are no proper youths here, everyone’s ‘youth’ was robbed of them somehow, and you are _so fucked._

“…….” With a threatening aura, the woman descends, black and red robes flowing behind her. She’s shorter than you, awfully young. Ok. It’s clear that your uncle’s tapping this fine piece of ass, but the way she’s making you stand on edge— “ _How the fuck do you know who I am?”_

“….Erm….Who are you?” You blink.

“ _The lady asked…”_ A snap of Hades’s fingers—and like a rushing torrent of the world’s meanest river, you are filled to the brim with divine energy, all at once. It threatens to spill out of you and you have to choke it back. You buckle from the strain of the too-rapid reestablishment. “ _…how you_ know _her name.”_ His threat is more properly chthonic, more full of death. He belongs here. But _she?_

You’re sweating wine. Cough it up, all over the floor, buckle . The woman stares at the liquid in shock, recognition in her eyes. Hades’s nostrils flare as the scent hits his nose. “…Persephone.” You croak, through your full throat. And then it hits you.

You stare at this girl and tremble a little. At this young lady who stares back at you, as though you’re the only weird thing about the hall of the Lord of the Dead. You have no idea how to proceed, so you stare up at your Uncle in fear, in supplication, digging from experience from Zeus—

Persephone pulls your head back up and to her by your hair and vines grow on it, live. “ _Answer me.”_

You’re sweating wine in the middle of the throne room of the Dead.

The long-lost daughter of your mentor stands before you, glaring.

And the God of the Dead is saying nothing.

“My name….”

_What those two have going on isn’t any of our fault except theirs._

_He ended up being honest with her, right at the very end._

_I like how it makes people feel when we eat._

_It’s a promise, okay?_

“…My name is Dionysus. Son of Zeus and Semele….” You tremble. “…I want to talk to my Uncle.”

Only when you say those words, does Persephone register the desperation exuding from every pore of your being.

“…Hades.” She turns to him, commanding a presence so like her mother’s, yet so unlike hers at the same time. “Let’s call a recess.”

When his wife speaks to him, the face of the Lord of the Dead softens, and he sighs, the sound deep.

And so, for the first time in the last 437 years (or so you heard), the House of Hades called a recess in administrative activity.

This recess was ended shortly, however the Lord of the Dead excused himself for a protracted period of time, leaving the Furies to administer judgement (fair, as Hades said) to those who came to plead their case. 

Hades had…a different matter to attend to, after all.

And he had you, for the second time, recount your journey. Your life—even though he surely saw it all behind your eyes. He made you tell your story yourself, with your own words, as though that added something. The thought loosens your lips, makes you less afraid, because you realize you were a moron who listened to the boogey-man stories that Zeus told you about his terrifying, deathly brother. He and Apollo might get along as lovers of truth—but Apollo was too sunny to come down here.

In any case, you recounted your life for the second time.

“So…my brother seduced your princess mother….” Hades said, as though talking to himself. “then _showed_ her his primal form, just because she asked him to?”

“He swore by the Styx.” You repeat. That part is very important.

“My brother got _hoodwinked_ into swearing by the Styx by a _princess_.” He says, to make it clear to himself.

“Yes. It is so.”

“It _is_ so…” The Lord of the Dead hums.

…And then he snickers. Loud and incredulous.

“Know I do not laugh at _you_ , wine God…” Every word this man speaks drips of royalty, no other description does Hades’ voice justice. “I laugh at my _fool_ of a sibling. At _all_ of them…” Yet you, who have grown to be an expert on laughter, know how to recognize bitter chuckles when you hear them.

“You miss your mother.” Persephone says.

“I never knew her.” You respond, careful in your tone, because she knows that you know, and you know that she knows that you know, and it’s like when men fight against the urge to talk about politics at the table after letting your gifts grace their lips. It’s juicy, it’s interesting, but you know that if you talk about it out of turn, you _will_ have the topic explode in your face.

Silence.

“…I have a question for you.” Persephone speaks. “It won’t be factored into the decision. I just want to know…” Sounds like bullshit to you. This place is ruled by morals. Whatever ideas floated around were bound to affect verdicts. But as soon as you realize that, you feel your tongue grow a little heavy. Just a tad—but you are a God, and you recognize the taste of truth.

She’s not going to let you lie.

“…If your mother isn’t what you think she will be, that is to say—” The phrase makes you stiffen in your seat. Persephone sees this. Reacts. “I don’t want to assume anything about her. I don’t know the woman at all. However… _you_ don’t know her either.” She leans forward a little, honest concern peeking past her hard expression, betraying her, and you try to imagine Demeter in her place. Is this how she looked like as a young woman? With eyes so soft and bright? Yet you’ve seen the same eyes grow full of contempt and suspicion at the slightest nudge. How _much_ like Demeter is this woman whom you’ve only just met? You’ll never know, you suppose. “You don’t know, yet by the report Thanatos has given me, you’re still seeking her, even without a preconceived idea of her in your mind. Why?”

“Well,” You shrug. What the fuck are you supposed to say? “She’s my mother.”

“And we… love our mothers...” She said, voice _flat_ , so flat you begin to piece the pieces together. Her eyes lock to yours, and you recognize the silent warning. “…But what if you don’t get along? There are plenty of parents and children who do not get what they want out of their relationships.” You had heard from your current worshippers that the ancestors of your cult had been able to reconcile their parents to their decision. But what if that had been a lie? Religion played with stories and changed endings in order to convey moral truths to the receptive audience. It was tested theological theory, the best way to guide one’s flock into one’s image. What if his former lovers hadn’t fixed things with their fathers?

What if, because of you, the first people to show you mature love had lost the love of their caretakers?

…Was that fair?

“That is my question to you. What happens, if days, weeks, months, or even years from now, the two of you prove irreconcilable?”

“…You’re not asking me how I would go about mending our wounds, are you?”

Persephone shook her head. “If a wound can be mended, it will be mended. I want to know what you will do if it can’t.”

You see your life stretch out before you. All your triumphs. All your mistakes. All your worries, your fears, your moments of exaltation, your silences. You see your guilt and your past point through the current you, towards the uncertain veil of the future.

“It’s not that difficult. We just live our lives.”

She squints at you. “How do you mean?”

“I mean,” You breathe, fold your fingers together like your mentor. “…we live our lives. If we can’t patch things up ever, and we’re just too different, we live our lives. I’ll buy her a good house, make sure she doesn’t’ want for anything. We will wish each other well, and just let each other go.” You think a bit more. “Depending on how old my mother is when we split, I’ll ask her if she wants some help to be hired. But I’ll let her go. I’ll instruct all my worshippers to leave her in peace. And when she eventually dies naturally, I will cry at her funeral.” You stare at Persephone with a somewhat sad expression on your face. “You can’t force two people who don’t love each other to live together. But at least, they should be able to coexist.”

“And if she doesn’t want to let you go?” She pressed, intense in the question.

“I already love my mom too much to let her make that mistake.” You smile.

Demeter’s long lost daughter doesn’t talk to you again. She takes your words. Nods. Thanks you very much. And then, you wait, in a room, by yourself.

You can hear the husband and wife debate on the other side. Sometimes loud, most times soft, measured, almost academic, and you remember Athena’s university lectures on ethics and morality, particularly the one about just desserts that made everyone who was aiming for Elysium extremely uncomfortable. You can hear others join their conversation. Multiple voices, some you recognize, others you don’t—and sometimes, you doubt that these are only Greeks talking.

In your chamber, you snap your fingers. Make wine. Make barrels of it. But you don’t drink, because you understand that you have a hole in your heart, and that anything you make will be affected. This swill is _not_ what you made wine to be, what you made revelry to taste like. You vanish it all, and after repeated experimentation, you confirm, again, that the problem lies at the core of your heart.

The wine is like a mirror where you see yourself, and you remember foreign Tezcatlipoca in his warm land, and sigh, thankful that you didn’t run away from your problems. Now all you have to do is keep facing them, eternally, forever, in hopes that your worshippers (if there are any left) look at your example.

Maybe some will be able to remember who they are, and regain their way.

When larger-than-life Hades joins you, it’s with a scroll, and a flaming quill that is etched in characters that speak of eternity. Of an eternity larger than what your father Zeus was ever able to show you in your time together. For the first time, touching that feather, you understand the true immensity of death. You wonder how Hades does it—how _Hermes_ does it, in his limited capacity.

“…Is this my sentence?” You ask, hopeful that it’s not. But you are not sure that you qualify as alive anymore, and just in case he’s here to negotiate the finer terms of your time in the afterlife, you want to get it through.

“No. It is the terms of release of your mother.”

Your quill shakes in your fingers. “E-Excuse me?”

“Semele…” Hades choose his words. “…We discussed the terms of her life, and of yours. At first, I was fully against you leaving, as the reputation of my estate is of the utmost importance. You understand.” You think of Ares, how he values the fear of death because it means that no choice to enlist in an army is done without full thought, how it makes the drinks offered by the winning and losing sides all the more sweeter because of the emotional weight. And while you’re certain this is not exactly what Hades is referring to immediately, this is how you appreciate his needs. “…Your mother was a princess, and not a perfect person in the least.”

“Are you saying she committed sins?” You ask, interested. Persephone’s words return to you, and you realize you want to know more, to prime yourself before you meet the woman who haunts your dreams.

But Hades doesn’t play nice with anyone. “You can ask her yourself. All living creatures sin—at least, to date.” He says, certainty in his voice as the Lord of the Dead. “Even Zeus, in all his glory.”

…He saw everything. All of it.

But he does not speak of it.

And you think you could maybe get along with him, one day, if you shared a goblet or two.

“…Who spoke in my favor?”

“Some spirits. Some shades. And my wife.”

Two emotions come to your heart at once, mix, trap themselves against the other.

On the one hand, you are ever thankful. Ever _grateful_ for Persephone and the spring in her heart that is so different from her mother—or perhaps, for the kindness that hides itself in the heart of both mother and daughter. You want to run to her, kiss her feet, act the fool at her because she deserves it. Hell, this is the first time you’ve _met_ her. All these years, and you never met the woman, the daughter of your mentor, because you were too busy drinking yourself to death. The sheer idiocy of your actions is depressing. You could have shared _so much…_

But that leads you to the suspicion.

How did Hades, Lord of the Dead, Father of Woe, fall in love and _marry_ the only daughter of the Goddess of Nature? How did he snatch that prize, that one blossomed flower who, by all rights, should have been surrounded by a full garden of sisters—only that her mother, in her irony, never took to rearing her own children from her own womb, only the wombs of others. How did such a fairy-like woman command the heart of a man whose eyes could turn the mind to a vapor?

Hades is there, in your face, at that instant. You smell his beard—the _death_ , the _sleep_ , in his breath. You see the galaxies again, and this time you’re _in them_ , in that hot, flaming space. Utterly at the mercy of the God of the Dead, of the First Son of Time.

You don’t even try to fight. You know when you’re outmatched. You just let go, and sink into the infinity of his mind, aware of how small you really are.

And he lets you go. Just like that.

“I propose an exchange, Cup-Filler.” He speaks like he’s not aware of you gasping and coughing as you get used to having a defined body once more. “I give you your mother, help mend the wounds in your heart caused by my brother’s insatiable lust. And you, in exchange, give me your lips, and swear to never speak of what you have seen in these halls.”

“…The world is covered with snow, you know. All those crops and berries and foodstuffs—cuz Demeter’s depressed and sad that her daughter is no longer with her.” You glare up at him, a sudden pride in your station, and sit with your back straight. “As a God of the Harvest, auxiliary that I am, this causes me quite the personal injury—”

“Is that _my_ fault? Or the fault of a woman who cannot let go?” For a single, terrifying instance, the room _burns_ you, and you do not have skin.

But just for an instance.

“…Swear to it.” And in his eyes, you see a threat—though not one borne by him. The threat that if Demeter were to ever know who stole her little girl, she would rip the Earth apart, and Greece would fall into the underworld as a last-ditch effort to end it all. The Lord and Lady of the Dead had a bit of a chemistry, you picked up on it easily, and they made no effort to hide it. But to Demeter, just like to the fathers of your beloveds, Hades would forever be the man who took her little girl away.

And you’ve borne witness to so many drunken mistakes and drunken choices that you _know_ this instinct to protect is an immutable part of what it means to be a parent.

You yourself do not have children. But if you did…

….You…you’d like to think of yourself as progressive, in these cases….

…But even Aphrodite in her free-loving ways would one day learn of the terror of seeing her children grow up too fast for her liking.

Silently, you grow a grapevine from your wrist, full of every respectable opinion for the Lord of the Dead, and you offer it to him. “Alright.”

He eats your offering as you sign, and feel the contract lace itself like a promise around your throat. The parchment has been bathed inside of the waters of the Styx, and you nod at the clever little mechanism.

“How….how were the grapes, Uncle?”

He blinks at you. “….” And leaves.

…well, then.

You wait for a while, to see Persephone. You wait. You wait. Until one of the Furies, Alecto, shakes her head at you and points to the door. “The Queen doesn’t want to see you, drunkard.” Her nails are steel and caked with blood. “Scram.”

You look at the Hall of the Dead, not knowing if you’ll ever see her again, and leave.

Hermes stands right outside of the gates to the Hall. “Hey, cuz. You look…”

He doesn’t finish his thought, just hugs you tight.

You hug him too. Squeeze, look at him, and as his ankle wings flutter, you lock your arms.

_How much does Hermes know?_

Your lips burn, your throat itches, and you drop it. But not because of Hades’s contract. You drop it because you know cousin Hermes very well, due to all the travelling and all the sharing the two of you have done. He is a God of many talents, secrets, and connections with theological systems he, by all rights, should have no business touching. He speaks all languages, knows all codes, and his eyes sparkle with mystery every other day. You know that he keeps his secrets, though with grander intentions than someone like Zeus could have. You know that if you asked him, he would never say anything.

So…you don’t ask him about Persephone, or Hades, or anything else.

“Shall we go, Dio? The trip’s not that long from here.” He motions to Chiron’s boat, where it floats on red water, and you realize, for the first time in all your life, that you got to be taller than your half-brother, somewhere along the way.

When you see your mother, she is in Asphodel. Alone, with her back turned to you, gazing out into the eternity before her.

Under contract with Chiron, Hermes got out of the boat with you, and balanced himself atop a single stalk of swaying wheat, staying perfectly balanced and level. “…Aren’t you going to run to her?” Your half-brother asks you, eyes focused on every move you make.

“I mean, I’d like to, man…” You chuckle, hit your legs. “But, _fuck_ , I can’t move…” You whine.

Worry flows through your mind. You wonder if maybe this is too soon. If, perhaps, you should’ve requested a different meeting area. If she even got the letter detailing the change of her own circumstances. If she could even recognize a baby she never saw outside her own womb. You realize that, no, no woman could do that, and you turn, terror in your eyes, to your half-brother. “H-Hermes, man. This ain’t it.”

And Hermes grabs you as you turn towards the boat. “Woah woah woah, _calm_ _down_ , cuz!” He shakes you, worried, as Chiron stares at you with his wide purple holes. “What’s the matter with you?”

“She doesn’t know me. She can’t know me—she died before I was even alive.” You stammer this, voice shaking with a terror you can’t even describe. “Nah, n-nah man, I’ll just go back to Hades’s office, write her a letter.” You’ll charm your way in, give Alecto and Megara and Tisiphone some of your finest wines or something else, hell, you’ll create a brand new concept right here, just for them, to let you through. You begin to formulate the very complicated plan in your head.

“Oh, for _fuck’s_ sake.” Hermes rolls his eyes and pushes you. “Just— _talk_ —to—her—”

“No, fucking _stop_ , you asshole! Stop—”

_“Dionysus?”_

…You freeze.

Hermes is frozen too, right behind you, not even breathing. All of asphodel is as though silent as the woman turns and locks eyes with you. “You’re…you’re Dionysus, right?”

You were right. She does not know you.

She has no idea who you are.

Yet you’re walking to her anyways.

You’re walking, walking, then running, sprinting, and before you realize it you’re breaking because you’re getting too close too fast, and you stop just before her, because she had run towards you too.

She’s clutching the summons from the Court of Death in her hands, her eyes wide. “You’re…Dionysus, right?” She repeats.

“Semele?” You can’t say mother. You can’t say it yet—

She touches your cheek. “ _My baby…!”_

_And you come undone._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prosymnus is cool, but like, remember YOUR social skills, please. You are most likely a person with an internet connection and most likely basic social graces, if not more.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TIME FOR SOME PARENTING FEELS

Your name is Dionysus, and your mother is at your side as you walk through all levels of Greek eternity.

The two of you immediately get to talking, past your tears and snot and the handkerchiefs that Hermes offers because he’s a bro and he’s got your back. Your emotional wing man, now and forever.

For the third time, you tell your story to your mother, and you _drink_ of her reactions. You relish when she agrees with your opinion on things, are shocked when she disagrees. She tries not to jump into the role of a mother, tells you that she doesn’t know what that is, but you beg her to do so because it’s what you’ve always wanted— _the treasure that Athena once mused in private she would never be able to have—_ and you drink of her trying so hard. She listens, shocked at what you’ve done, at who you met, at all the sex you had (your mom would have raised you to be very puritan about things, apparently), and at the faraway, dreamlike places she was never able to visit, but that you’ll take her to. You’ll take her to Egypt, and to Judea, and to Japan and China and Tenochtitlan and so, so many other places. Just so that she can meet your friends from far away, because she’s sure to love them too (or maybe she won’t and you’ll see the world from her perspective and learn from it).

She meets your beloveds. The ones who, all by accident, helped to found the respectable side of your cult, and she blushes at the details. They blush too. You realize that it’s extremely awkward for a parent to hear about their children having sex, but she enjoys hearing about what wonderful friends you made. She’s proud of you for being a champion of true love.

When she meets your mothers, they bow before her, she who bore their God. And then, when she clears the air and explains her circumstances, they remember, and they cry because Zeus had come to them and gave them their mission of raising you without so much as an explanation. She cries, _thanks_ them for how they loved you, and then 47 separate mothers nag and dote on you, filling you with so much love, you think it will overflow and be wasted—but it never does, and you can hold all of it.

She tells you about her days on Earth. About her time as a girl, as a maiden, and as a woman with child. She had worshipped the Gods you see as family, called them honorable names. She tells you she can scarcely believe all the stories you tell her about the Gods, so colorful to you, who to her had seemed so lofty—until Zeuz came to her, and took her out to dance in a shower of light. Always a different appearance to keep things interesting so that she would have to guess who he was that day, but _always_ handsome, and _always_ electrifying with his touches.

She sighed, her smile dimming slowly. “He was _so_ good to me—until he wasn’t. But that was my own fault. He really did try to get me to reconsider…”

You…

…You just hug her. You just hug her, because you can’t bring yourself to talk about how Zeus, King of the Gods, is. But then she hugs you tight and nods and _she knows._ She knows, she knows, she knows and she gets it. How could she not know, how could she, a devoted and faithful woman, not have known? Impossible. “…I knew he was married, but I—I prayed to Hera all the same, because I was with child, and—”

Oh, mother.

She shook with her embarrassment, with her regret, and you see some marks on her skin, evidence of a punishment for her participation in the infidelity of a serial womanizer.

“…Did the Furies go too hard?” You ask, touching the lines, not knowing how to feel, yet feeling a _lot_.

“At first, they did. But then, after they realized it had been because of Zeus, they relaxed their whips, until eventually…” So she hadn’t been sent to Asphodel from the start?

“…Your grandfather had been so excited…but I never told him whom had taken me. Maybe, maybe if I had spoken up, told someone about my problems—”

“It’s ok.” Your hands shake. You bow your head and you hold her because at the very least, centuries have passed, and you want to remind her she is in the _now_ , away from the past. “It’s ok.”

Wine can only help you move forward, even if it makes you look back. Only _look_ back.

All any of you can do is move forward.

You meet her friends.

Her family.

Your family, you realize, and you love them even more, because you would have enjoyed knowing them so much.

As you walk through Tartarus and Asphodel and Elysium for those days, you bring the light of joy where you go, because you are parties and fun and _my fucking grandson is the god of wine, you motherfuckers._ Your grandfather is a riot. You love him immediately, laugh even though there’s no wine for them to enjoy (Hades is being very lenient by letting you run around). You nearly say that you wish you could carry him with you out loud as well, but he puts his fingers upon your lips even though you are so far above him, and reminds you that your love for your mother is more of a miracle than he had ever hoped to see down here.

_After she died, my little Semele, I didn’t know what to do. But now…now it’s ok, just a bit._

And you realize that there are limits to charity, and wonder if the systems of the dead in other countries work like this one, and then hug your grandfather, because you had wanted to love him very much under the light of the sun and the moon, but this will have to do.

For that old man’s sake, you will carry his daughter to the surface, to live the life she had been robbed of. 

When you’re ready to leave, Hermes is also there to escort you out of the Underworld.

“Thanks, brother.” You say as he guides your mother to her cushioned seat on Chiron’s ferry boat. The boatman tilts his hat to her, and she nods, like she’s not super afraid of him. Had he been kind to her when she’d fallen down? The thought makes you stare at him before he wiggles his oar and you look away, terrified of a whipping.

You look back at the Furies, dutifully uprooting the last of the vines that your outbursts of love had managed to plant in Asphodel and other areas. The holes they leave behind are quickly covered by the wheat, and it is as though no tearful reunions had occurred in that place. “Guess they really can’t have wine down here.” Hermes muses.

It makes you sad, even though you know it needs to be that way.

Some wine, for the poor people of Asphodel, you think.

But maybe…maybe it’s fine after all, like this.

They’re grown past life. They don’t need you anymore.

And…

…When you see the sun, again, your mother sighs. “Are you ok? Dizzy?” You are at her side immediately.

“No.” She smiles. “It’s so warm.” Even though it’s cold as fuck. You realize how dearly beloved the world is to its people. Even cold and chill, white and shining like this, it’s beautiful.

_Demeter is beautiful too._

“…Wait. How’d you get into the Underworld without my help?” Hermes asks the next day as he’s readjusting his plated sandals.

The joy drains from your face, and then you laugh, embarrassed and happy again. “Oh, fuck, Prosymnus is gonna _kill_ me.” And you cheerfully, blushing because your _mom_ is here now, explain that you met a man, a human man with weathered hands, and that he’s a bit weird but he’s so good, deep down.

Semele smiles at you, so happy—but Hermes balks like he’s heard of something awful. “What’s wrong?” You joke, getting ready to rib him. “I ain’t settlin’ down, not yet anyways, hahah!”

“…” He inhales, then exhales. “…How long do you think you were under there, Dionysus?”

“I mean…” You shrug. “A few days? A couple of weeks?”

Your mother has a sad look. “I’ve lost the track of time so long ago. Down there it’s useless to try and keep count.”  
And that’s when you begin to notice the true meaning of the ghastly expression that Hermes has on his face. “I thought—I thought you were talking about a spirit, or a satyr...”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh shit unintended consequences  
> (this part of the myth fucked me up)


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We reckon with our consequences, whether we meant for them or not.  
> Who said life was fair?

Your name is Dionysus, and you will soon know grief.

For now, you only know urgency, hoping against the nature that Demeter taught you of so well. Hoping that somehow, someway, there will be _another_ exception. That everything will be all right.

You run.

“Hail. Do you know Prosymnus, the loner?”

Run.

“I’m looking for Prosymnus.”

Run.

“Hello there, friends. I—I’m looking for a man, named Prosymnus?”

Run.

“Have you any news of Prosymnus?” 

Until, finally, an older man blinks at you, hair as white as the snow he stands upon. “…My Uncle Prosymnus? Who lived alone in his hut?”

The woman next to him turns, shakes her head. “Wait, but you said he had died when you were 8…”

They tell you of him while you listen, shaken, trembling. You don’t know if they can understand what you are, but somehow they decide to be very candid with their personal family history. Prosymnus had talked to his family once in his self-appointed exile, about how he met the God of Wine, felt his lips upon his skin, nursed him back to health and was given Sight. None believed him at first, and yet, he began to apply his gifts, his wisdom. He communed with the nymphs and the satyrs, who were seen, and with the spirits and the energies who could not be seen—yet _he_ _could_ see them. He reminded the people, one by one, of the old ways, of proper worship of the Gods. He made communion possible between man and nature in this little corner of the world, which allowed the people to learn to take advantage of nature respectfully, and survive the cold better. He became a pillar of the community, an enigma who was beloved and yet preferred to continue to live alone. And, still holding to his story about meeting a handsome God and stoking the heat of lust with him, he died without taking another partner, completely celibate until the day they found him under a frozen grape vine, so serene, that a foreigner who had been travelling had mistaken him for a Buddha— _but didn’t they know Prosymnus was nothing like Siddhartha?_

They have the sense to give you space as you as you cried. You, who loved man and who set your timetables to theirs, had forgotten their flow—and Prosymnus had passed from this world, patiently pining after you.

You force his nephew into a hug to try and feel something, but all people are different, and you apologize, awkward and so, so sorry.

And then, after an awkward goodbye, you are all alone once more.

The winds of winter blow.

And blow. Ever on. Ceaseless in their march, howling for all that is lost.

The world is frozen over—and yet, your heart is thawed forever by love for your mother, by the memory of a weird loner with kind hands. You have no choice. For the first time, you let yourself feel what winter really is, and you walk, one with the earth, tears frozen on your face.

The ice, wise in its silence, engraves lesson after lesson into your heart, and you come back to your mother even taller than before.

Your mother grasps your face when you return, hollow and empty. Hermes, even though he hadn’t needed to take care of you for so long, stayed with her for the whole 3 days. And you kneel in front of your mother, because once again you left someone whom you loved alone while you went around where you feet carried you without really thinking. The ice engraved the lesson again. “I’m so sorry, I—"

She forgave you, and it hurt when she did.

Then, nodding, she cursed you out and kissed you, and that felt better, even though you were still forgiven anyways.

There comes a point where your mother, lulled by the call of Hypnos, sleeps for the first time in years. And you are able to sit next to your cousin and stare at the frozen trees, the snowy earth. You’re silent for a while, fighting with the emotions in your chest. “…Why didn’t I meet him down there?” You ask, unable to keep the bite out of your voice, the blame.

And that’s when Hermes finally loses his patience with you and gives you a look so _scathing_ , so measured, that you immediately recoil from your burst of cavalier. “Tell me something— do you know the _age_ of this world?” His eyes, for the first time ever that you’ve seen it, glow copper, and you smell the secrets that he keeps, the ties that let him travel around. “Of the number of empires that have come and gone, or _will_ come and go? How could you _possibly_ seek out a single man without the express authority of a God of the Dead?” _Who the fuck do you think you are?_

“I—” You hold your hands, bite your lip, whisper. “I promised him I was going to rock his world. And he asked me to marry him.”

Hermes calms his aura, puts his hand on your shoulder, shakes his head. “Dionysus, _come on,_ bro.”

Hermes says his last favor to you in this adventure will be to take you to Prosymnus’ grave. Nothing more. You must learn to live without the constant aid of your favorite brother.

Your mother agrees to go with you, holding your hand, warm in the pelt that you gave her which will never freeze over.

But the moment you reach the place, you stop. All of you do, at the sudden change in the air. Hermes looks at you like a guy who’s accidentally knocked over a jug full of fresh berries onto the road as his clothes change, as divine threads weave through his hair. “ _Shit_. Dionysus, I thought—”

“—no, man.” You shake your head. Look at where Prosymnus is buried and _promise_ that you’ll return right when this is over. Alone, because you need to be alone with him. You smile at Hermes and hug him, clasping his back. “It’s alright.”

“…” Your mother holds your hand tighter. Tighter, and Hermes stands next to her, ever the gentleman.

And the heavens open in their grand, grand splendor. Deafening and blinding. The mortal world evaporates, as though what matters is only what's coming.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aw shit son it's the winding action or whatever

Your name is Dionysus, and you stand inside of Heaven, surrounded by your divine family, down to the most extended branches of the tree.

They are, in a word, ecstatic. Your reclusive spell hid your presence from most of them, and rumors had begun to fly around that you had been lost. Then, suddenly, Hermes had announced that the Cup-Filler had been sighted in Hades by none other than Chiron, and Olympus had waited in bated breath for him to rescue you, or to at least confirm the manner of your demise.

Never would they have thought that you would emerge from Hell itself rejuvenated and refreshed, your revived mother at your side, under your protection.

Aphrodite had gushed as she shook her hand. “It is an _honor_ to meet you, good Lady. Your son is _such_ an example of what love can achieve!”

You learned that you always left ripples behind. That the pirates that had been touched by you reformed their ways, became honest men, and spread the tale of the day that Dionysus showed them the truth of their repulsive behavior. Not only a God of Wine, but of so many other things, now. Their stories reached your first temple, which had always remained active, and the priestly family had welcomed them as fellow devotees, touched by your holy hand. The rumors of the stories circulated throughout all of Greece, the rareness of wine becoming coveted as something to inspire warmth in these strange, cold days. Hopes floated up like snow flakes, that once this veil of winter was lifted, life would return, and all would partake of Dionysus’ bounty once more.

Remembering your beloveds (all three of them) in Hades, you wipe your eyes, and Zeus tries to get everyone to stop talking about things that make you sad, but it seemed the God of Thunder has trouble distinguishing between sad and happy tears at times.

They give you a day to get situated. You do not leave Olympus, on advice of your mother, who tells you that she has no idea what’s going on, but that something is happening. Something that means you need to stay and observe.

“I mean, we’re not going to be _rude_ to Zeus, are we?” You chuckle, play along.

“Dionysus, it’s not just Him.” She holds your hand. “It’s _all_ of them. All the Olympians were looking at you.” To a mortal, the mere presence of one of the 12 would be almost too much. To see the entire Pantheon present would be indescribable. So you have a moment where you consider telling her to relax. Yet…

You do as she says, because you have to agree. Heaven would not have opened up for you simply for the Gods to have a chat.

Not after all that.

Zeus wakes you up during the first soft rays of dawn, and you are whisked to the throne room. Only the 12 Olympians are there this time, and 11 of them sit upon their thrones. It is the first time you have been here, in the center of Heaven, and you feel the divine power thrum. For a second, you think you see something directly below, but you turn your eyes back to the 12 present Gods.

11 sitting. Not 12.

The Lady Hestia is the only one who does not sit down. You have never met her, only heard stories from Hermes, Athena, and the Twins. Her eyes shine like Prosymnus’ hearth, like the fireplace inside your first temple, and your shoulders loosen when she looks at you because her entire person feels like _home._

“Well met, Cup-Filler.” The words she says are curt, but her tone is motherly, and like the crackling of a flame. You cannot help being drawn to the Lady.

After looking at Zeus and pulsing with warmth, the lady leads the conversation. Your deeds upon the earth, both in and out of Greece, have been meticulously observed by those whom you call family. Not that the bonds you’ve made with them were fake, no, simply that word gets around when all aspects of human life have at least potential to feature you and your gifts. You may not feel it, they assure, but you are as integral to the culture of Greece as they are.

“And so, I come to you, offering you my throne.”

She says it simply, smiling at how your mouth goes _dry_ , at how attendants ask your mother (very loudly, very obviously) if she needs a seat. After seeing that she takes it (her eyes are trained on you hard), you turn back, and let out a chuckle.

If this were any other time in your life, you would be dancing.

_But the image of Prosymnus’s handsome beard does not leave your mind._

“Well? Surely you accept, son!” Zeus calls out, grinning, chest puffed.

“Brother, don’t pressure the boy.” Poseidon cautions, though his expression is much the same. “Well, not that he’s a _boy_ now, but you get the point.”

“I for one don’t see the difficulty of the choice.” Ares chimes out, Aprhodite chiding him silently.

“That’s because you don’t _think_ , cousin.” Athena remarks, fanning herself, hiding a smile that comes when Artemis and Apollo tease your war-borne half-brother. Ares glares at the Twins, who shrug and tell him to stop acting tough.

Hephasteus doesn’t talk. All he does is look at you and your mother, silent.

“You see, _this_ is why I insisted on having this talk in a plainer setting, but _no,_ the ‘atmosphere’ is just so important—” Demeter starts, and then the Gods (mainly the four sitting elders) start arguing about what would’ve been the best way to talk to you.

Hestia looks back at her siblings for a moment before cupping her mouth and whispering to you. “Your eyes, the flame within them is so sad.”

You can’t speak about it because to do so would be to invite your emotions back (and quite honestly you don’t want to share anything about Prosymnus with anyone in this room, not right now), but you shrug, smile, notice that it doesn’t reach your eyes.

“Your heart is true, child. What is on offer right now is the path with which you will live your life—your _eternal_ life.” She holds your hands, sends warmth. “It is difficult, but you must see your whole self, and your responsibilities, in plain view. And from there, you must chart your path.”

And in that warmth, there are words that she feels more comfortable relaying to you than explaining.

You think, with her warmth in your veins, of your journey. Of your life. You are a God who began in a small forest, cared for by women who had been charged by your father after a terrible, terrible accident caused him to give birth to you by the hip, in place of your charred mother. You travelled, grew as you met many, and ascended rank, only to nearly throw it away because of the weight of the truth behind their union. And then, what called you back was your worshippers, few in number, choked by the cold, but still brimming with love for you, just like the two of so long ago. Emboldened, you travelled, met some men, and then met _a_ man who won some part of you before you descended down and won your mother back from the jaws of death, with an additional secret ready to die behind your lips.

You are someone who loves humanity. Always throwing your lot in with them, despite being someone who knows first hand how…complicated their behavior can be.

In doing so, you learned to love like a human does. Felt the love of humans save you from your own hand.

The answer, in that sense, was clear, but….

You turn. Your mother is there, sitting on a chair with spirits next to her, and you walk back. The spirits disperse, give you room, and you whisper your most recent crazy idea in her ear.

“…So? How about it?”

Her hands are shaking. “But—but I’m—”

“I think I want to try and do things my own way, mom. But, if you want to try and see them with me, well…” You’re on your knee, but it’s alright, even if almost no other person in this room would ever take such a position.

She holds your hand. Breathes. “It…depends on what they say.”

You nod. You’ll make sure she has the options to do with your gift as she wishes later. But for now…

For now, you’ll win what you always wanted, _your_ way.

“…May I ask for one more gift, aside from the throne?” You pipe up to your father and the rest, and they stop and turn to you.

Zeus, smiling gently, nods. “Whatever you wish!” You do not miss the looks Demeter and Poseidon give him, after looking behind you at your mother. Of course. He’s their brother, it’s only natural they would know.

Hera does not turn to look at her husband.

She simply looks at you. And you cannot read her gaze.

“Could my mother be granted godhood as well? With eternal vivaciousness and youth, for her sake.” You know enough to be clear about requests from the Gods, after having met so, so many. You love Eos, you do, but you will not make the same mistake that she did. Not with your mom. “If I can rule and have her by my side, I can make my wines taste so much sweeter.”

As expected, there's a moment where everyone looks at you with wide eyes. But not _too_ much surprise. They reel it back in, think to themselves that yes, he went into the Underworld for her sake. It makes sense that he would want his mother. Before any of the elder Olympians can speak up, Aphrodite squeals. “YES!! Oh my goodness, what love!! What affection!”

Hermes, who had been minding his words for this whole time, raises his two-serpent scepter. “I also cast my vote for Dionysus’s mother. I can vouch for her character, went all throughout the underworld with her on this _huge_ roadtrip, tale for the ages, really, why she taught me some wonderful—”

“I think it’s a grand idea.” A deep, rumbling voice speaks, makes Hermes’s voice die out. Everyone turns to look at the Blacksmith, who shrugs, nonchalant. “What? Good mothers are just hard to find, is all. I should know.” Hephaestus nods, grinning, suddenly open with his secret happiness. He ignores how Aphrodite _balks,_ how Hermes slaps his forehead, and how everyone is torn between ignoring Hera and gawking at her. Hera, on her part, crosses her arms and huffs. But she doesn’t speak, and Hephaestus doesn’t goad her. “My brother has my vote!!” He says, giving you a thumbs-up as though you planned that outburst with him, and it’s all you can do not to _piss_ yourself, because he personally told you exactly what Hera did to him all those years ago.

“Fuck, Hephasteus…” Ares whispers, his voice too-loud in the resulting quiet. He blushes, realizing he also spoke out of turn.

“Alright, can we just all _calm down_? Let’s all just take a _deep_ breath, center ourselves, remember the mantras everyone, hahaha….” Zeus holds out his hands, smiling _very_ tightly, leaving Demeter _unimpressed_ and Poseidon _tickled_. All you can do is look at how Hephasteus shrugs again in self-contentment, how Athena rubs her temples, and how Artemis looks over the edge of her seat, as though wishing she were allowed to leave.

You see your mother, in the corner of your eyes, is _tight-lipped_ , and still as a stone, not looking at anyone except Hestia, who stands calmly.

After calming down from the effects of Hephaestus’ commentary, the Gods turn to each other, murmur, look at the woman in question. Sneak a few glares at each other (mostly at Hephaestus), but they’re still all really talking about just you and your wish. You look at your feet, utterly at a loss, and see it again. That depth, that darkness….

….You hope, even if he has no jurisdiction here, that your other Uncle approves as well. After all he’s done for you.

“W-Well,” Zeus makes a show of coughing. “the procedure for conferring that quality of immortality is not lost to us. Of course, there are logistics involved, and—” But for all his posturing and regality, you can see it. You can see the way that having two of the women he’s loved in his immortal world is making your father feel very nervous.

Athena is looking squarely at her father, her gaze stone, her lips unreadable.

On that note, you turn to Hera, and you see that, past the roughness of her brow, there is horror, _horror_ , hidden in her eyes. Known to none but her…

…and you.

You’re sad and frown, and when she locks eyes with you and sees you know how she feels she changes, to a look of utter defeat. The wind exits her in a breath too silent to be heard over her husband’s speech, and she is silent for a while, as Zeus keeps on talking about procedure this and procedure that— “I think it’s fine.”

“ _H-H-Honey bunch?”_ Zeus’s face is _pale_ as he turns to look at his star-dressed wife, as all her brothers and all her children and step-children look at her. The way they had reacted to Hephaestus’s words _paled_ in comparison to the _shock_ they were displaying now. “I’m sorry, I, I think I didn’t hear you correctly. Erm—"

When all other eyes lay on her, Queen Hera is almost too dazzling. “I said I approve of his wish. Let the woman be free of decay.” With a simple wave of her fingers, a divine wind blows past you and curls around your mother for a moment. The vote is cast, and your mother is standing up, tyring desperately to not buckle her knees at the woman who was married to the man that got her pregnant. 

The only thing that can be heard is your mother’s mouse-sized gasp. You smell it in the air, salt, water, but you cannot go comfort her. You too are rooted where you stand. Athena’s jaw is slack. This was completely out of her set of predictions. Hermes’s ankle wings are _twitching_. And suddenly, Artemis isn’t as bored and over with this meeting as she had been a few seconds prior. She’s even more invested than Apollo.

A moment where no one says anything, and the pressure spikes as Hera’s eyes go _black_. “I’m sorry, is there a _problem_ with what I’ve just said?” Hephaestus grips a hammer in his hand so hard it shakes, and all the Olympians react as they bear the brunt of Hera’s incalculable…nudge.

Zeus, after a moment of blustering and stammering, clasps his hands together and releases confetti into the air, being exceedingly loud and boisterous. The Olympians, Hestia included, clap, awed, looking at one another. With Hera’s vote cast, the rest follow, and the decisions for both motions are unanimous.

And so, you ascend in front of your mother, the Authority granted by the King flowing into you and granting you a Godhood at the level of your cousins. When it is done and your aura sparkles with full divinity, you take your seat. The emblem on the throne changes from a flaming orb to a rich bunch of grapes, and your favorite hues of purple and gold run across the satin.

Zeus is still yelling and cheering like an idiot.

And so, to spare your dear father any more embarrassment, you slap your hands together, and burst out of your seat, propelled by a pressurized jet of wine.

You mean no disrespect to the _King of the Gods_ , of course. His merrymaking was full of heart, that it was. But just for today, you’ll show him how it’s done.

The resources of Olympus are yours to command with the mere space of a thought, and thus, you are free to reign. And reign you _do_.

Heaven in Greece is a party for you. By your design. And you are confident that it is the greatest party these people have ever seen.

The energy of it cascades across the frozen land. Demeter’s winter is not broken (no, the grief she feels is far too powerful for even your triumphant return), but the people’s hearts are awakened to you once more. Miracles abound, they find warm wines in their pantries, dried grapes and berries in their drawers and under their mattresses, perfectly clean. You feel it return, like the filling of goblets, your people across Greece remember you, and you feel offerings, meager as they are in the winter, burn up towards you and dress you in clothes made from their smoke.

The threads of their love make you look _divine_ as ever.

As the God of Wine, Merrymaking and Festivities, you lead the celebration of your return splendidly, with a perfect rhythm of different activities abounding for all to partake. The serious spirits of Olympus are ecstatic with the chance to feel something other than solemnity, and so take to your orders instantaneously, with great joy. You bring to your brethren bits of culture from your travels, weave the food, drinks, and games into conversations among the many different groups that you bounce around from.

Your father could not be more proud, enjoying himself as he is, seemingly free of any uncomfortable interactions for the moment.

But you don’t really care about him.

Or, rather, he’s not the _only_ one you care about.

Most of your attention is kept by everyone else. Apollo takes control of the music and sings songs of joy for you and your mother, then for Olympus in general, and you’re so thankful he knows exactly how to balance subject matters for great effect. Ares and Athena are in a rare mood of happy cohabitation, almost perfectly friendly with each other as they snicker and laugh and drink. You spend a good chunk of time on Artemis, relaxing her, letting her have her fun, before some of her ladies jump ahead of her and invite her over. She thanks you and goes to join them, standing a little taller. Hephaestus takes great interest in the many treasures you display from different lands, marvels at the craftsmanship and the use of materials, and you make a promise to him that you’ll take him to meet all your other friends very soon because he’d _love_ it. Your uncles and aunts do their things, as well, having fun where they may.

Hestia walks with you for a moment. “I had anticipated some shin-ding to celebrate your ascension, but this is quite the celebration!” Her hair is all sorts of different colors, and her joy seeps into each and every lantern and fireplace, dyeing the halls with the rainbow of her cheer.

Poseidon, is, of course, riding the crowds, with Zeus joining him, because they’re the kings and their people love them.

When you spot Demeter, you’re not sure what you should do, at first.

As a good host, you walk up to her, offer her a drink. This time, you _do_ use the fancy Olympian goblets.

“Will this one get me drunk?”

“Do you want it to?” You ask back, perfectly ready to dial the alcohol as needed.

“…You know, I don’t much want it to, no.” And then, she tells you why.

She points to a part of the heavenly gardens where peacocks graze. From overhead on the crystal balcony, you spot your mother sitting with Hera as they look at the event horizon.

“…Oh.”

“They’re not fighting,” Demeter assures you. Excusing yourself, you empty two other wine glasses and use them as very serious binoculars, ignoring the way your aunt gapes at you. You zoom your sight…

…and you see Hera, her shoulders shaking, her hand covering her mouth as she shakes her head over, and over and over.

Your mom doesn’t smile.

But she does put her hand on Hera’s . And then, her back, and she’s stroking so gently, biting her lip.

Before you can see anything else, though, Demeter swipes the glasses from your hands. “If anyone else had seen you spy on a goddess, your honor would have been torn to shreds, along with everything else.”

“Oh—Oh fuck.” You feel the severity of your action due to your newly established Divinity. And you thank Demeter for saving the grace of the moment your mother is having with the Queen of Marriage.

Once again, you did not think things through as you should have.

“It is fine, Cup-Filler.” She says, sighing. “It…it is good. It is good that you asked for your mother to join you in eternal dignity. Hera might never have talked to her again, otherwise. Now one wound in her heart might heal with time.”

_You remember, just like you have always been able to remember, the searing sting of Divine Light tearing past the safety of human placenta, cooking you alive and bringing you so, so close to Death._

You keep your face neutral. “Why does she have to be that way?”

“My sister is…a proud woman. The proudest of them all. She _has_ to be, of course.” She doesn’t say anything else about the subject.

Instead, as you look down on the garden and imagine your sweet mother talking, Demeter speaks to you about something else. “You…when you were down there, in hell. Did you meet a girl?”

You fight very hard to remain as loose as you had been before. “Who?”

“A young girl, named Kore.”

Kore?

But then you connect yet another dot, and shake your head. “No.” And in a sense, this is true. “No, I never met a girl named Kore.” And, to probe, and to keep up normal appearances, you ask. “Is she…”

“…She is the reason why your job has been so difficult as of late, and why you must be active, rather than passive, in the protection of your domain.”

One might not let things go, there. One might call Demeter out on her bluff, accuse her of being duplicitous and underhanded. For her to refer to your domain as being hard to control when she and her winter was the cause of that very difficulty seems unfair to you. And it is, because you and her would be the best co-workers in any other circumstance. And yet…

…Yet you stare at your mother, walking along with Hera, and you wonder what it means to be a parent. You think of Prosymnus, of how much you had wanted to fuck him to oblivion and back, and you know that he had not the equipment in his body to bear you a child.

…Could _you_ have borne him a child instead? Be a father through ovulation rather than ejaculation?

_You must see yourself in plain view._

You…

…It will take you many, many years to understand what Demeter is going through. What Hera and your mother went through. It will take you many years to have a child of your own—if it even happens.

There is a chance, however slim with your romantic extension to all sorts of beings, that you will never hold the title of Father. Of Parent.

And so, you must give deference to one that does.

You will not break your Oath. Your Uncle and your cousin trust you. But you slowly extend your arm until your warm hand covers Demeter’s cold one. “I’ll do my best.” You say.

You stare at the event horizon while Demeter sighs. By now you recognize the look on her face, and can only imagine what sort of prayers she is sending out to her daughter.

…Can Persephone hear her mother praying for her sake?

You will never know.

The party has gone on for two weeks, now, and Olympus is in full swing. As expected of the House of Gods.

But you’re a clever host, and in the past two weeks you’ve gotten to know every employee and attendant of the Heavenly Halls. Made rapport with them, gotten them under your lists and secured a spot for yourself in their hearts. When things went well and you had proven your ability as a host early on, you had gone to these servants with a plan to win you two whole hours of respite.

Respite needed to fulfill a promise.

And so, you stand at the edge that separates Mount Olympus from the earth, ready to take a step out.

“Son! There you are!” A thunderous voice interrupts you and a warm arm is suddenly around your shoulders, muscled and shiny with crystalized attractiveness. “How’s about you and I go hunt some nymphs for sport, eh?” The way that Zeus is smiling at you tells you he means a very specific kind of hunt.

And you remember when you were a child, and you asked Zeus about all his children from the myths and stories, and eventually, somehow, through both your push and pulls, the conversation led to _teaching_ you, rather than lecturing to you.

It was…fun, back then, to have your father operate as a cheering squad for you while you had your conquests.

But shallow fun did not make your cult a reality.

And it did not give you nights holding a wise loner.

“Actually, Father. I don’t think I’ll be going.”

“What? Come now, Dionysus. Don’t be a sour grape.” He wiggles his eyebrows. “Get it? Sour grape? _Eheeeh_ , give your old man a slap!”

You blink. Slap his hand. The joke disoriented you because it was shockingly bad, but…

Zeus is still smiling at you, but now he’s giving you a look of fatherly disapproval. But you’ve stayed with many a father in your time, of all races and ages, and only the very worst of these forced their children to play grown-up with that kind of disapproving look. And you always made sure these got their comeuppance somehow, because to you, someone who has never had a child (yet), fatherhood has a respectability about it.

Zeus cannot read your mind, however. “Now, son. I know that you’re very tired from holding these festivities, and I understand that you might need some time to adjust to your new position in the metaphysical plane,” Understanding, and then— “but it does not _do_ to reject a gift of father-son time like _this_ , now does it?”

“Um…Well, old man, you see—”

“What are the spirits going to say when my son doesn’t show off his stuff? My reputation rides on your success, you know.”

You have to choose your words very carefully.

Before you is your father, but also King of the Gods. And if humanity has preserved anything with good accuracy, it is the stories of his capriciousness. The tales of his lust and need to lick and kiss what is not his. The warnings from days of old, days before your birth, to not anger he who sits atop the clouds.

There are many fathers in the world.

But Zeus is different than most, because he is Father to All, and thus his word is Law.

Unless of course, one goes to things older than his Law—like the Styx, whose Oath even the Thunderbringer cannot break.

So you must speak carefully. For the sake of your mother, who is starting to get situated and meet your cousins properly. For the sake of your family, who are enjoying your party and letting go of the stress of your absence. For your new servants, who want to please you just like humans do.

“I…”

“Yes?” You remember how he once grabbed your hand, still shy and nervous, and told you how to make a woman moan with it alone.

Sure, it was good to know, but…

“Father, I thank you, I do, but—”

“I HEARD SOMETHING ABOUT NYMPHS?!”

You both jump, and Zeus has to buckle as Poseidon jumps on him and waves a cup. “Zeus!! The nymphs are having a wet toga contest, you _have_ to go!” He shakes his brother with the force of a deep-sea Jetstream and pulls him away from you.

Zeus points to you, tries to get his older brother off his back. “I-I was just getting Dionysus to join us, brother! Wait a moment, and I’ll—”

“Oh, leave the young lad. Doubtless he has a maiden or somesuch he wishes to please in private! Don’t be a spoilsport now, brother.” And Poseidon hoists his brother up on his shoulder with ease.

“A-At least give me all the details when you return, Dionysus!”

“Stop being nosy!”

And with that, the two were gone.

“Goodness,” A female voice. From the shadows. “All these years and he doesn’t know how to bond properly with his own progeny. _Bastard_ or otherwise.”

“M-My lady—”

But Hera waves her hand. “Enough of that. Go, go. Shoo, shoo.” She pushes you past the line and looks down at you. “You have a duty, go do it.”

You stare at her.

At this woman who got your mother killed in the most gruesome way you can imagine.

At this woman whose jealousy and spite have led to the deaths and tears of countless men and women. As she perfectly termed it, of countless bastards from her own sow of a husband.

She, who made the great Hercules cry tears of blood, just like the way the Titans cried blood when she shot their eyes and made them weak for her siblings to take down. The secret author of so many heroes and villains due to her unwavering and merciless sense of justice that can never strike at the one who deserves it the most.

The Mother of Marriage.

“Lady Hera? Do you think,” you call up to her, wind making your hair dance. “—am I the type for marriage? Could I have made it work? Ever?” You ask, not just for Prosymnus, but for all your past loves.

And she just rolls her eyes and groans. “No one is the _type._ It’s all about making it work, you stupid _idiot!_ ”

She leaves. Surely aware of how hypocritical her own words must be.

…But perhaps Hera, you realize, allows herself the indignity of her husband’s embarrassments to know each and every limit of the marital bond. To give no quarter to those who would dare sully its sanctity, to always, no matter what angle, show them the scar of the sin upon her own body, and say _I know what you made them feel._

A good way to define what _is_ , is to understand what _is not_ , and draw the distinction.

You run.

Run to fulfill your promise.

_Hera is either braver or stupider than you will ever be._


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And thus we are here, at the end. But even then, we must keep going.  
> At the very least we can do things right, at this point. It shows we care.

Your name is Dionysus, and you lay upon the soil in front of a frozen grapevine.

No one is here.

No one but you—and him.

For behind the grapevines is a tombstone that the townspeople left in his honor. Before you even start, you touch it, command your little ones to adorn it rather than besmirch it. _There_. Just like that.

Now, you can read his name clearly, and sigh as you touch the script with your fingers.

You _miss_ Prosymnus.

And you lay down on the soil, and feel the earth thrum. Close as you are to Demeter, you feel her turn, give you the privacy you didn’t necessarily ask for, and you curl up a little because you are now truly alone with his bones, just a few meters below you.

You can see the way he laid down, smiled at the grapevines, and died, peaceful, without any fear.

And you don’t cry. Not after what you saw, how the soul lives on after death, under the care of Hades, fair and honest.

Not so fair that he’d _tell_ you about Prosymnus, but hey.

To keep your promise, you call upon the earth, make wood grow whose roots caress his bones, and from a solid chunk you begin to fashion his tool. It’s still clear in your mind, the curve and the vein along it. After a few warm breaths and movements of your hand, a final second to ensure the scrotum is just like his, the toy is done.

…You’re such a fucking pervert.

And you chuckle to yourself—and to him. Because he’s here with you, even if the veil prevents him from talking back.

“I think I was irresponsible, man.” You talk to him as you push his substitute inside yourself, gasping, but otherwise keeping yourself perfectly pensive and meditative on Prosymnus. “I didn’t like, chide you in your loneliness, or help you relieve your tension. I just held you, and I fell for you just like you fell for me. You know,” You bite your lip a little. “talked about it with my mom, a little. She was happy you helped me, would have absolutely _loved_ to meet you, but she said we were moving too fast.”

You buck, roll your eyes. “I mean, it’s not like she can really _talk_ , y’know? Considering she got with one of the few men whom everyone and their fuckin’ grandma knows is married. But I mean, my dad’s kind of a douche, anyways. Power like that makes people act weird, you know?” You look up at the sky. No thunder. You don’t know who is intervening for you here, or if Zeus has seen that you were planning on doing something important. You’ll have to learn eventually and modify your behavior a bit in response, but for now, you’ll take it. “Guess I should consider that too, on my end. You end up talkin’ so much shit about other people who have power that you end up not really noticing when you get power yourself. And then, you forget that people can say no because they always say yes.” You never raped anyone, never took someone against their will. But the power dynamic was always there. “Maybe realizing that is part of growing up.”

You’re hard, and you hiss at the way the air hits you. “But like, I don’t _know_.” You’re rambling now. “Maybe…” You buck your hips. “if it’s possible for us to keep in touch, despite the long distance, I wouldn’t mind? Maybe I can ninja my way down there again and snoop around for you. Fuckin’ shinobi my ass around Hades.” You pause. “Oh, ninjas are like, these guys in Japan, a far away country, and they’re all sneaky and silent and shit? And they kill people _super_ clean, like it’s fuckin’ metal, man. Those fuckers _do not_ mess around.”

Something tells you that it’s ridiculous that you’re focusing on _ninjas_ while fucking yourself and trying to commune with a dead man. You smirk, feel the hint of a beard on your neck. “I’ll give you more details some other time. Promise.”

You sigh as you take it to the base, and feel the earth beneath your feet and knees and fingers. “…I think that you’re kind of a weirdo, Prosymnus.” You get into a rhythm. “You ate like, fucking gross, dude, no table manners. And you had no social skills whatsoever. And like, you got by without cooking? Holy shit, bro. Bad form.” A chuckle, a chuckle in your ear, and you wipe your cheeks with the back of your arm, smiling like a sap. “But, fuck, I never felt more human than when I was with you.”

You’re getting close. The dildo’s getting warm too. You close your eyes, and it’s dark. “Sorry I couldn’t love ya properly, man.”

_And suddenly, you’re on your back in the darkness, and Prosymnus is above you, grinning sheepishly, both hands on either side of your head. You can’t help but hug him, and you don’t let go no matter how hard he moves, no matter how hard either one of you shoots, until he dissipates from your grasp after whispering to you._

You open your eyes. It’s cold again. Your chest is slick with come, and your cheeks are wet with tears.

But your head has a crown of pomegranate flowers upon it, and you blush, because you’re not the type to wear flower crowns. It’s totally not your vibe, man.

…No.

But you’ll keep it on, anyways, until they wilt.

You’ll have to go back down and get another crown, obviously.

Of course, you’ll come prepared with a hefty sack of coins for the ferry man. And you’ll throw in a couple of ambrosia bottles, just to make him row a little faster.

He’s the one who knows the way, after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Man, I loved writing this. I hope y'all did too. Hopefully I can get more ideas for Hades fics in the future.

**Author's Note:**

> And here I wanted to write a SHORT one-shot , but nOoOoOo  
> I had originally wanted to upload this as a one-shot, but I figure it's more fun to split it up into separate chapters. It's already all written, so don't worry. I'll be uploading every other day, just to see if that's a nice way to get more peeps to read.


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